


Aye, Zombie

by kellsbells



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F, Zombie AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-04-17 08:46:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 57,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4660179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kellsbells/pseuds/kellsbells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bering and Wells Zombie AU. Set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, but in another universe where the Good Friday agreement never happened. What if Myka was the former villain? This is the result of a particularly vivid dream of mine, which may or may not have been aided by large doses of (prescribed) painkillers. So if it reads like a bad trip…that’s why. Trigger warnings for pretty much everything you can imagine - violence, assault. Also, lots of swearing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mass Panic

Aye, Zombie

 

I don’t know why I went to mass that day. I used to go nearly every week, out of habit mostly, but eventually I had grown tired of Father McCaffrey’s dirty looks and his homilies about homosexuality and sin, always accompanied by pointed looks in my direction. But I was bored that day, lonely, and I always saw lots of people I knew when I went to mass. None of them talked to me, they were too scared, but even so it was a change from my empty house and my empty mind.

 

There were sometimes people giving away free stuff before mass. Father McC had tried the old “Jesus getting angry at the moneylenders in the temple” homily a few times and then gave up. West Belfast people always took free stuff, guaranteed. There was so little of everything to go round that you took what you could get, that was it. The Troubles had been dragging on for over 40 years and the people were tired and scared. So if someone was giving out free stuff, it was a novelty and a change from the bombings and the shootings and the general drudging horror of daily life. It happened more than you would think. Northern Ireland was a perfect test market for manufacturers of all sorts of stuff, food especially. Norn Iron, as we say it, was small and contained so we got plenty of weird and wonderful products tested out on us.

 

I took one of the freebies – it was some sort of minty thing, like a piece of greeny-blue film that dissolved on your tongue, from one of the chewing gum manufacturers. I didn’t fancy any right then so I stuffed them in my pocket. Plenty of people round me were stuffing them in their gobs, glad to have something to tide them over until Holy Communion. You weren’t supposed to talk about the host, or the body of Christ or whatever, but it was actually tasty enough. It just had a terrible habit of getting stuck to the roof of your mouth, and I had spent plenty of mornings trying to scrape the bloody thing off with my tongue while trying to get through another mind-numbing homily from Father Mc or one of his stooges.

 

The mass was boring as usual. Stand up, sit down, put your left foot in, left foot out. (My religion teacher told me a story about mass once. When he was young they still did it all in Latin, and he was an altar boy. He got beaten black and blue by the priest because he was saying, “Me a cowboy, me a cowboy, me a Mexican cowboy!” instead of “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” I thought it was the best story I’d ever heard. It still might be.)  I always enjoyed the singing at mass. There was a folk group at our church, all tin whistles and bodhráns and twangy guitars, but it was better than the old organ that they used to use. I played the guitar myself, better than most of the group actually, but they were too frightened of me and my reputation to even speak to me, so I’d never asked to join. I was used to people casting their eyes downward as I approached, and the leader of the folk group, Jimmy, was no exception. I had approached him once, but sighed and just gave up when he’d averted his eyes respectfully. I was disappointed. Playing in the group would have been a bit of a diversion from the everyday for me, but if they couldn’t even look at me, how would that be any better than playing on my own at home?

 

The folk group were playing something twangy (and out of tune) when I realised I needed to go for a wee. I was glad I’d stayed near the back and at the end of the aisle; Father Mc would have given me evils if he saw me going outside in the middle of the mass. I went down the side corridor to the small toilet. There was no seat and no loo roll, but I was prepared for that. I always brought tissues with me to mass. Partly for this and partly because my eyes always water when I yawn, and I yawned a lot at mass. I finished what I needed to do, wincing at the cold in the old building – not something I really wanted to be exposing my nethers to, but needs must and all that. I was doing up the zip on my jeans when I heard the noises start. Screaming wasn’t an unfamiliar or unusual noise where I came from, but this was mass, where everybody was always on their best behaviour, and there was a lot of screaming, even for West Belfast. And there was a weird high-pitched squeal, like microphone feedback.

 

I have seen a lot of chaos and death and pain in my life, but nothing prepared me for what I saw when I got to the end of the small corridor and pushed open the door into the main church. The folk group had stopped playing, largely because Jimmy was beating one of the tin whistle players to death with the remains of his guitar. (To be fair, her playing was shite, so…) The squealing noise was probably the tube pre-amp on the guitar that Jimmy was so proud of feeding back into the microphones and speakers – you weren’t supposed to point them at each other because they went mental. But I didn’t think Jimmy was too worried about that, being as he’d finished beating that poor girl to death, judging from the porridge-like substance that was splattered all over his face (brain matter, my analytical mind said to me helpfully) and was now attempting to garrotte the bodhrán player with the remains of his guitar strings. (The bodhrán player didn’t deserve it, musically speaking at least; he was really good with his wee drum.) Similar scenes were playing out all over the church. Father Mc wasn’t going to be bothering me with his homilies any more, or his dirty looks, because his eyes weren’t in his head any more for a start. The altar was decorated with sprays of arterial blood, familiar to me from my former life, but out of place here in the place that was supposed to be about peace and tranquillity. (And guilt and sin and hell, but sure what can you do? Nobody’s perfect.)

 

Some of the people in the church were screaming and trying to get out, but the more they screamed, the more the others piled on to them and did the most unspeakable things to shut them up. I’d seen my share of horrific things done during my lifetime, but this was the worst for me. Ripping, tearing, biting, gouging. The injuries were horrific. I saw one of them biting into the arm of a child that belonged to one of my neighbours and took a step forward involuntarily, and the movement caught the attention of one of the crazies. It was Geraldine Monaghan, an old friend of my mummy’s. She’d babysat me when my ma and da were out. She wasn’t in the mood for babysitting now, though, judging from the blood on her teeth and the way her eyes looked. The whites of them were grey, the pupils were black and had taken over the iris entirely. It was wild looking.

 

The wee girl’s neck was spraying blood and there were four of them on her. My mind calculated the odds and apparently decided that running like fuck was the best option. There was no helping the child. I tried to keep up with my legs as they took on a life of their own. I would’ve given anything to run this fast during my school sports days. But apparently the potato and spoon race (yes, that really happened) hadn’t given me enough motivation. My neighbours eating their kids was what I really needed to give me a proper appreciation for athleticism.

 

I reached the town square and noticed with some relief that it was full of soldiers. They at least had guns and could call for help with their radios. I ran over to one of them and told him that something had gone wrong at mass, that the people were killing each other. He looked at me like I was off my head, sniffing glue or whatever. He was a bit taller than me and was carrying the usual kit – a walkie talkie, an SA80 rifle in his arms and a handgun in a holster on his belt. He was from the South of England, very London-y.

 

“Watchoo talking abaaaaht? Faaahking micks and your mass. ‘Oo gives a shit if you all faahking kill each other?”

 

 (Translation: What are you talking about? Fucking micks (Catholics) and your mass. Who gives a shit if you all fucking kill each other?)

 

(The accents from England confused the shite out of me. They couldn’t be more different, and England was _tiny_. Northern Ireland had its different accents but they were much of a muchness, just variations on a theme. Some were softer or harder, that was about it. England had about 20 different regional accents and they all had their weird little things about them. When he said ‘kill,’ it came out ‘keeooow’.)

 

“Look, soldier boy, if you want to get your face ripped off that’s up to you. But they’re all killing each other and they were chasing me. So I would warn your mates if yousens all want to stay alive. They’re acting like zombies or something.”

 

(Norn Iron = English translation – you=one of you, yous=two of you, yousens=three or more. Kind of like “y’all,” and “all y’all,” I guess.)

 

He looked down at me sceptically with his stupid red beret and his camouflage uniform. Where the fuck in West Belfast did they think green camouflage was going to blend in? Like you wouldn’t see them against the mountains of concrete and burnt out cars and shopping trolleys? It always made me laugh. (Until the one night I was waiting at the bus stop and 14 of them had materialised from nowhere behind me where they’d been hiding in a small section of bushes. I very nearly wet myself.)

 

“Did you say zombie?” he asked, as if he was hard of hearing.

 

“Aye, zombie,” I said, nodding.

 

Something about the set of my jaw must have convinced him. It certainly wasn’t my words. I had been in hairy situations enough myself, maybe some of it showed in my bearing. He radioed the other fellas in his squad or whatever they were called, and they appeared behind him, one by one, emerging from alleys and behind walls. They spent a lot of time pointing their guns at people as they walked past, these patrols. It was fun, as a six year old, to be playing football with your mates and having a rifle pointed at you by a soldier across the road. Like everyone else in Norn Iron, I grew up at gunpoint.

 

He explained what I’d said to him, and they looked sceptical for a moment, the lot of them. But then the screams started. They must have finished in the church and started looking for fresh meat. I hoped that they didn’t actually _eat_ people, but I didn’t suppose it made much difference whether they ate people’s faces after they ripped them off or not.

 

A crowd of the crazies appeared, turning the corner into the square. The soldier I’d been talking to barked some orders in his daft accent and the others spread out a bit, levelling their rifles at the crowd of shrieking, blood covered crazies heading their way.

 

I backed away, finding a spot where I could watch but not be seen too easily, and where I knew there was plenty of access to get out of there if things went tits up. I didn’t have a weapon, so I figured it was safest to hide behind the fellas that did. There was a sort of monument in the middle of the square, a statue to honour the hunger strikers, that the government had tried to take down, but the resulting riots had killed four people – two of them soldiers – so they’d left it where it was. As I hid half behind a wall that was decorated with the colours of the Irish flag and the usual slogans “Brits out,” and “Tiocfaidh ár lá,” (our day will come) I saw a girl – no, a woman – appear from the alley opposite me, where a few of the Brits had been. She was carrying an expensive camera, and I couldn’t help but notice, even with everything that was going on, that she was gorgeous. Black hair, long and loose over her shoulders, tight trousers and a shirt and waistcoat. What the hell was she doing, though? I had very sensibly decided to hide out _behind_ the lads with the guns to make sure I got out with my hide intact. She was out in the open, exposed, and I’d just watched a lot of people die in horrible ways. My heart was in my throat watching her. She got up on the monument, leaning on Bobby Sands’ outstretched arm for balance, and started taking pictures of the approaching mob.

 

The soldiers shouted as the bloodstained crew of crazy people approached. They told them to back off, disperse the crowd or they’d be forced to take action – all the usual. But the loonies just kept approaching. The soldier nearest to me was a short, stocky ginger fella. He was yelling in a Scottish accent that they should back the fuck off, but I could see his throat convulsing as he took in the blood and entrails that were covering this crowd of people approaching. There were about 15 soldiers, and the crowd approaching them was about 50 strong. I hoped more people had survived. The church could hold a thousand people at Christmas. It wasn’t full that morning but there had to have been at least 500 people there.

 

There were men, women and children in the crowd, moving faster than they should have been able to, eyes grey and black, hands reaching, clutching, with blood dripping from some of their fingers. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d wet myself at that point. But my wee trip to the toilet had been a good idea, apparently, for more than one reason, and I was safe from embarrassment.

 

The soldiers flung a couple of tear gas grenades at the crowd. They must have been set up for riots, it was June and the parade season was soon to be upon us, bringing its inevitable riots and shootings and deaths. The tear gas grenades did nothing at all, there wasn’t even a cough from any of the things that had once been my neighbours. The soldier nearest me started firing, and the bullets took out legs and arms, but still they kept coming. I think the soldiers realised their mistake about the same time I did. A few of them started aiming for heads, and took out a fair few of them, actually. They must’ve been paratroopers, they were the best of the soldiers that were stationed here, and the most vicious. But they weren’t quick enough, and the mob overtook them. I heard screams like the ones I’d heard in the church, and my legs got ready to run like fuck once again. But a flash from the monument caught my attention for a second and I remembered the woman with the black hair. What in the name of Jesus fucking Christ was she doing taking pictures when she should’ve been running? Was she mental? I should’ve asked myself the same question, apparently, because my feet took me forward without my consent and I grabbed the SA80 from the body of the Scottish soldier nearest me. His head wasn’t attached any more, and the fucker that had killed him had dragged it behind a wall to chew on it in peace, I supposed. I didn’t dwell on how much strength a person would need to literally rip someone’s head off. I rooted around in the soldier’s belt thingie and found a couple of spare magazines that I tucked in my jeans pockets, and I grabbed his sidearm, a Browning 9mm, for good measure. The crazies had started to surround the monument, and black-hair had realised her mistake after a flash from her camera had attracted a few of them. I stared at her in disbelief for a moment and then started taking careful aim. It had been a year or two (five) since I’d fired one of these, and I had lost the feel of it a bit. But I took a crouching stance to steady my aim and started to fire in short bursts. The IRA used Armalites and AK47s primarily, with the odd Heckler and Koch for the higher ups, but we were all trained on the SA80 too in case we took a soldier’s weapon. This wasn’t the circumstance in which I’d imagined doing so, however.

 

I took out six or seven of the people – no, the things – that were attacking black-hair. The rest of them turned at the noise and started to run towards me, too fast. I stepped backwards slowly, still shooting, and still in my crouch. I took out another ten or so before they lost interest in me and took off back the way they’d come – up the street, towards the church. My legs gave out, suddenly, with the relief, and I ended up landing on my arse ungracefully, the rifle close to my sprawling body. Arthur would have killed me if he knew I’d lost control of my weapon.

 

She appeared, like a vision, looking down at me, the corners of her lips pulled up in amusement at my indelicate landing.

 

“I think you just saved my life, darling. To whom do I owe my undying gratitude?” She held out a hand and I took it in my left, holding the rifle steadily in my right as I allowed her to pull me to my feet.

 

“Myka Bering.”

 

Then I realised that the voice was English. Fuck. I’d just saved a fucking Brit. Arthur _was_ going to kill me. 


	2. Winding up Wells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More of my weird zombie apocalypse, Irish style. Also, Bering and Wells style.

I must’ve stared at her for too long, because she went red and asked if she had something on her face.

 

“You’re English,” I said flatly.

 

“You have curly hair,” she said.

 

I stared at her again. What the fuck?

 

“Sorry, I thought we were just saying things that are completely obvious.” She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at me.

 

“Well, thank you, Your Ladyship, for clarifying. What I meant was, you’re English and you’re in West Belfast in the middle of the Troubles. What in the name of the baby Jesus are you doing here? And why the fuck are you taking photos in the middle of a fucking zombie apocalypse?” I said it as scathingly as possible. She was mental.

 

She flushed in annoyance at my tone.

 

“It’s my job to take pictures in war zones. I’m a journalist.”

 

“A journalist with a fucking death wish, you mean? Did you see those fuckers? They were eating the bloody soldiers. Who the fuck thinks it’s a good idea to take fucking pictures when that sort of shite is happening?”

 

“I will have you know that I have won several awards for my work. And I do not have a death wish, I’m simply very dedicated.” She was doing a very haughty upper-class English face at me, trying to look down her nose at me. Which wasn’t going to happen, because I was at least two inches taller. She gave it a good try though. I was impressed.

 

“So, you’re so dedicated that you can’t even afford your own photographer? Or is it that no-one will work with you because you’re a fucking nutjob who throws herself into stupidly dangerous situations?”

 

That one hit the mark. Her eyes darkened and her hands clenched into fists. A few doors started opening around the street and I realised that she had to get out of there before somebody murdered her for being English. Why the fuck I cared, I couldn’t have said. But she was really awfully fucking hot, even when she was pissed off. No, make that _especially_ when she was pissed off. For some reason, I grinned at her.

 

“We better get out of here, Your Ladyship, otherwise you’re gonna end up in a shallow grave somewhere if anybody hears that accent. Keep your mouth fucking shut, alright?”

 

She looked around her and noticed some of the locals venturing out now that the danger was over. They’d be searching the soldiers, stealing the guns for the IRA effort and taking anything valuable before more soldiers turned up. The poor lads would be lucky to be left with their underwear by the time this lot were through. It was sad but inevitable.

 

“You’re exaggerating. They wouldn’t kill me just for being English, would they?” But I noticed she lowered her voice this time.

 

“I wouldn’t like to bet on it, M’Lady. If you want to give it a try, be my guest. If you give me your next of kin’s address I’ll send a sympathy card.”

 

She glared at me stubbornly, so I shrugged and started to turn, rifle in hand. There was no way I was going anywhere without some sort of weapon until all the crazies were rounded up. She grabbed my arm and I tensed. I didn’t much like to be touched these days. She saw the look on my face and let go pretty sharpish.

 

“All right,” she said, reluctantly, and very, very quietly.

 

I indicated with a jut of my head that she should follow me. We made our way cautiously and quietly through the alleyways of the housing estate, me hiding the SA80 as best I could when you’re carrying a giant fuck-off rifle at midday. When there’s no clouds and it’s sunny.

 

I slipped round the back of my wee house, undid the latch carefully as it was booby-trapped to stop the local hoods getting in and stealing stuff out of the back garden. (Garden is a generous word. Weed-filled marshland would be more accurate.) I indicated for black-hair to go in ahead of me, and I carefully re-latched the gate and set my little traps again – I also lined up a couple of bottles that would fall and smash if the gate opened so I’d have enough time to a) get outside and beat the shit out of the hoods or b) run like fuck if it was more zombies. Or the peelers. (Another name for the soldiers. It had something to do with Sir Robert Peel from the 1800s, I think. Never quite got to the bottom of that one, to be honest.)

 

I fished out my keys and opened the door, gesturing for her to precede me while I kept an eye out for anyone – human, zombie or otherwise, following or watching. There was no-one, thank the baby Jesus. I didn’t fancy shooting anybody else that day.

 

I locked the door behind me and turned on the hallway light. Her Ladyship had stopped a few feet into the hallway, looking uncertain now that she was in my territory. I felt a bit sorry for her all of a sudden. She looked smaller inside my house than she did in the outside world. I waved a hand towards the living room, told her to take a seat. I put the rifle near the door, propped up so it would be easy to grab if something went wrong.

 

“How do you take your tea?” I asked, from the kitchen, as I switched on the kettle. (You’ll notice I didn’t ask if she wanted any – some things even the Brits and Irish have in common.)

 

“White, one sugar.” The same as me, strangely enough. I made the brews and brought them in, putting one on the small coffee table at her elbow. She was sitting in what used to be my mummy’s chair, looking incredibly ill-at-ease.

 

“You can relax, you know,” I said, smirking a little bit at her discomfort. “I’m not going to do you any harm. If I was going to, I’d have left you to get eaten by those things.”

 

She glared back at me as I took a seat on the sofa. She was a feisty one. I smiled and turned the TV on, looking for the local news.

 

The massacre hadn’t made the news yet. I didn’t doubt that it would. Even in Northern Ireland, a couple of hundred dead in one day was news. Black-hair was watching me like I was a wild animal.

 

“What?” I asked, rudely. Rude seemed to work with her, it goaded her into answering. Plus, it was really fucking funny.

 

“Where did you learn to shoot?”

 

Not the question I expected, I’d give her that.

 

“Why do you want to know? So you can put it in the paper?”

 

She shook her head.

 

“You saved my life, for some reason. So whatever you say to me, it won’t go any further.” I couldn’t say why, but I believed her. I studied her for a minute, cup of tea clutched in her small but strong hands. She was pretty but she wasn’t fragile. She looked like she’d seen her fair share of pain, too. Something in the eyes always gave it away. I saw it in the mirror every morning; I should know.

 

“I learned in a training camp in the Middle East. I don’t know exactly where.”

 

“How old were you?”

 

I took a sip of my tea before answering.

 

“I was 15 or 16. So, about 10 years ago.”

 

“You’re a very good shot.” She was impressed, and a little bit frightened, I think. I didn’t like that. I was sick of people being scared of me, and she’d been so promising, with her defiance and trying to look down her nose at me.

 

“I am. I had to learn to be. But I’m no threat to you, Your Ladyship, so you needn’t worry about that.”

 

She eyed me curiously.

 

“And why is that, Miss Bering? You’re clearly an IRA member, whether that be former or present, and I am English, and Protestant, and I was stationed with soldiers that have invaded your country. So why is it that you do not pose a threat to me?”

 

I shrugged.

 

“My past is my business, your ladyship. But I don’t just go round shooting people for being English or Prods or whatever.” _(Not any more, I silently added.)_ “I only shoot people that mean to hurt me.”

 

“Or those who present a threat to others, it would appear. Since those…things did not have any inkling of your presence, hidden as you were.” God, she was so fucking…English.

 

“Correct.” I nodded curtly. I didn’t want her making a big thing of it. “I watched them slaughter my neighbours this morning; it was only by chance that I was in the toilets when this all started. I didn’t fancy watching them tear you to pieces too.” I took a mouthful of tea, swilling it round to try and wash away the sudden taste of blood in my mouth. Entirely psychological, since I had no blood in my mouth at all, but what had happened that morning was a lot more horrific than anything else I’d seen in my time, and that really was saying something. I was probably entitled to feel a bit strange.

 

“Well, whatever your reasons, I owe you my gratitude. The boys in the patrol were only expecting a riot, even after you warned them. I didn’t think I was in any real danger. I thought I’d get some good photos and be back in the barracks before lunch.”

 

“Well, I can try and get you back down there, but we’d better wait until dark. If any of the boys see me down that way, near the barracks without a petrol bomb in my hand at least, I’ll be in for a hiding at best.”

 

She nodded, a tiny smile on her face.

 

“Thank you, Miss Bering.”

 

“Call me Myka,” I said automatically. Fuck me, I must’ve had a death wish. First name basis with a Brit, a woman, and a Protestant. Arthur was going to send the lads round with a couple of snooker balls in a sock if I wasn’t careful.  He told me to stay away from pretty girls after he had to placate three angry fathers in a row. (The daughters were quite happy apart from the bit where we’d been caught.)

 

“I’m Helena. Helena Wells.”

 

“Welcome to my humble abode, Your Ladyship.” She glared. I grinned.

 

*

 

My daddy was called Warren. He was an American, and he moved here in the 70s. He was one of these Americans whose ancestors were all Irish and he came over looking to join the effort and drive the Brits out of Ireland, like St Patrick did with the snakes. Sadly, the Brits were immune to whatever St Paddy did, because they were still here over 40 years after the Troubles started. Peace treaties were signed time and again, but there was always another atrocity that broke the ceasefire, and the merry-go-round started up again. He met my mummy, Jean, not long after he got here. She was training to be a nurse, and spent all her time patching up people after bombings and shootings. She very swiftly taught him the error of his ways when he said he wanted to join the Ra, as the IRA is known in West Belfast. She took him out in the middle of a riot, and made him watch as she tried to save the lives of two young men who’d been caught in a crossfire. He watched them bleed to death, but she wasn’t finished. There was a petrol bombing down the street from them and she made him walk through the burnt-out house with her, checking for survivors. They walked through, smelling the charcoaled remains of the dead – one parent of undetermined sex, and two kids. The smell was what always stuck with him, he told me. It reminded him of barbecue pork, and he’d thrown up for an hour afterwards. He became a pacifist that day, and brought us up to understand that no side was right. Violence was wrong and never solved anything. My wee sister Tracy and I used to parrot it at all our friends at school, believing it in that solemn way that kids do. My mummy was always reminding us that violence only causes more violence, because everyone always thinks their hurt deserves reciprocation, and so it goes on and on. She was right, too, because that’s all that ever happened here. The Protestants, in their various factions, killed a Catholic, and the Catholics, in their various factions, retaliated. And the British soldiers and the police were fair game too. The hoods were the young lads and lasses who didn’t get involved in the IRA and who had nothing better to do. They stole cars, sniffed glue for the high and went out joyriding in the stolen cars. They killed themselves on a fairly regular basis by losing control and driving into walls or other vehicles.  When I was 9 I first heard the word, ‘decapitated’. There was a teenager in our street who was called Smiler. He probably had an actual name but nobody knew him as anything but Smiler. He had a weird, lopsided smile on his face permanently. It was scary. He’d already been in one accident in a stolen car and got a serious head injury, hence the scary smile. But he still carried on stealing cars, and the last time he did it he collided with a bus and was decapitated. Davey Gallagher from my primary school class told me about it in an impressed whisper, and so I learned what decapitated meant. It never bothered me that I recall, I didn’t have nightmares about disembodied heads or anything; it was just a fact of life. But the hoods were a problem for the IRA. The IRA ruled with an iron fist in West Belfast, and the hoods were rebelling against that by stealing cars and burning out cars and vandalising and taking drugs. Drugs weren’t much of a problem in those days; nobody had the money. It was always alcohol or glue-sniffing for those who really wanted to go all out. The IRA carried out punishment beatings and shootings on hoods all the time, using the aforementioned snooker balls in a sock, or occasionally just kneecapping them. The serious offenders got a 50/50, a bullet at a certain point in the spine which was so called because you had a 50/50 chance – you either died or you were paralysed.

 

This was the world into which Helena Wells had sauntered, with her knee high boots and her swishy hair. She had no fucking idea what these people were capable of. She was watching the TV in the front room, and I had long since finished my tea. I found myself watching her thoughtfully.

 

She turned her head and caught me looking. She raised an eyebrow, not as mockingly as before, but I still flushed a bit. She smiled. Her eyes crinkled at the edges; I liked that.

 

“Why were you with those soldiers?” I asked, curious.

 

“I was hoping to get a story. I used to work for the Guardian, but I have been freelance for a little while, and I need a good story. I thought I might find it here. It’s not like there’s not enough going on.” She frowned. “I think I got more than I bargained for today. Those soldiers – I know you probably hate them all, but they were nice boys. They had families and people that cared about them. They didn’t deserve to die like that.”

 

“You won’t get any arguments from me on that score. Nobody deserves to die like that. Those things are brutal. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.” That wasn’t entirely true; I’d seen plenty of brutal, just not quite like that. I felt the beginnings of a headache. I usually got one after something bad happened. Maybe it was adrenaline, or blood pressure. Who knows?

 

“Do you know what happened? What started it?”

 

“No idea. I was in the loo. The folk group were playing a song; the offertory, I think. I was just about to leave the loo when I heard screaming. I went in to see what was happening, and they were all just murdering each other, tearing each other to pieces. Some people were trying to get away, but I don’t see how they could have. Those things were…Jesus, I don’t even have the words.” And I didn’t. Even twenty years of unremitting horror hadn’t prepared me for that.

 

She reached over and put a hand on my knee sympathetically. I jumped. I didn’t like to be touched, especially not without warning, but I gave her a weak smile.

 

“D’ya want some lunch? I can make a fry.”

 

“You can eat, after that?” She looked at me incredulously. Her hand was still on my knee. It was warm and distracting.

 

“They’re dead. We’re not. They don’t have to eat, but we do.” I shrugged.

 

I made enough for two anyway. Decent sausages, nice thick bacon, potato bread and soda bread, eggs. We never did black or white pudding in our house, so that was about the size of it. The famous Ulster fry. I stuck some bread in the toaster and dished it all up at the small dinner table, along with two strong cups of tea. Despite looking at me like I was an eejit when I suggested it, she tucked in, having brown sauce instead of tomato ketchup, but I let her off with that. She was allowed a few faults. Being bloody gorgeous made up for a lot. She smiled at me as she ate. I shovelled the food down me; food is a small but ever-present pleasure in my life, and I move enough to work it all off anyway so I haven’t ever bothered too much about what I put into my body.

 

I finished my lunch quickly. She still had a couple of bits of potato bread left. I was tempted to steal them; potato bread is my favourite part of the Ulster fry. Instead I gravely advised her to put a bit of salt on it and dip it in her egg yolk. She tried it and smiled again.

 

“That is amazing. Where did you learn to cook?”

 

It was hardly cooking, making a fry. But I told her my mummy had taught me.

 

“And where is she, your mother?” She asked cautiously, as if she already knew the answer.

 

“Dead. My da too, and my sister. It was a bomb.” I didn’t say anything else, and neither did she. There was something in her eyes though – not sympathy, exactly, but understanding. She had lost someone too. You can always tell.

 

I gathered up the plates and washed them quickly in hot water. Eggy plates are my kryptonite. If I don’t wash them straight away I want to vomit. She grabbed a teatowel and started drying up the dishes. She was easy to be with. She didn’t talk unnecessarily, something which I appreciated. I lived alone and I had come to be more comfortable with silence than talk. I used to talk more, I knew, before everything had gone wrong. Tracy and I used to talk all night. My daddy was forever shouting at us to shut up.

 

“So, Myka, what should we do? Wait til dark and then try to sneak down to the barracks? Do you have a car?”

 

I shook my head. “No car, sorry. I can drive but they were in the car when…so I never really wanted to get one. So we’ll be on foot. I would ring a taxi but if we stop anywhere near Woodvale barracks word’ll get back to the wrong people and I’ll end up getting a punishment beating.” Again.

 

“That’s fine. I don’t want to get you in trouble. You’ve already done so much for me.” I nodded, and gave her a short tour of the house. Very short. It was fucking tiny, like all the houses round here, but it was home. I told her she could get some rest, use the bathroom, whatever she wanted. Suddenly I was the one who was ill at ease. Nobody ever came here, into my space, apart from Arthur. And he never stayed long, thank fuck. I didn’t know how to entertain someone, especially not someone with a posh English accent. She was obviously used to finer things than I could provide, and I didn’t know what she would think of my tiny little house with its dated décor and the silly trinkets my mother had favoured and I hadn’t the heart to throw out. Helena seemed to sense this, and thanked me for being so kind.

 

“You saved my life, and opened your home to me. I am incredibly grateful, Myka.”

 

She made me feel better, with her soft voice and her accent that I secretly liked, and the tension in my chest eased. I grabbed the book I was reading from my bedroom and went back downstairs and settled on the sofa, leaving Helena to decide where to settle herself. She came back into the living room after twenty minutes or so, by which time I was completely involved in my book.

 

“Robert Jordan? I’ve never read any of his stuff. What’s it like?” I was glad she asked me that, or rather, I was glad that she’d phrased it like that. People usually look at you when you’re reading and say, “Is it any good,” as if you would be three quarters of the way through a book the size of a house brick if it wasn’t any good. And she didn’t say she hadn’t heard of him either, which most people did.

 

“It’s vast, and involved. A massive world with different cultures and hundreds of characters. I love it, it keeps my brain occupied.”

 

She nodded. “I haven’t read his work, but I have read a lot of similar series. George RR Martin, Robin Hobb. I love them all.”

 

We began an enthusiastic discussion of those authors and others of a similar ilk. She was knowledgeable and really smart. She knew more about some of the books than I did, and that was saying something. I was obsessive about certain books and TV series, and tried to learn everything I could about them. Internet coverage was spotty in Norn Iron, but I read everything I could online about my obsessions, and Robert Jordan’s work only happened to be the most recent of them.

 

I started to feel a bit shy. It was probably the first time I’d met a real life person other than Tracy who actually read the books I did and it was strange to be discussing these characters face-to-face with someone. I offered to find her the first book of the Wheel of Time if she wanted. She said yes, and I went upstairs and found it on my bookshelves.

 

I came back down and she’d made us both a cup of tea.

 

“A woman after my own heart,” I said, gratefully.

 

She winked and smiled at me as I handed her the book. If I wasn’t very much mistaken, black-hair was flirting with me. Arthur _was_ going to kill me. I tried not to blush as I returned my attention to Rand Al’Thor and his adventures.

 

I became engrossed in my book, as I always did. Her ladyship got my attention by clearing her throat quietly. What was it with the English and their politeness? I looked up, a bit irritated. I hated being interrupted when I was reading.

 

“I’m sorry to interrupt you, darling. But it is getting rather late and I am, quite frankly, bloody starving.” She smiled ruefully, shrugging a little.

 

I flushed. It had been a long time since I’d had a guest in my house other than Arthur, and I’d forgotten everything my mummy had taught me.

 

“I’m sorry. I’ll go and see what I’ve got in the kitchen.”

 

She followed me. I looked through the cupboards and the fridge and we settled on omelettes. They’re more of a breakfast thing for me normally, but my brainpower was a bit deficient what with all the zombies and horrific deaths and all that. I started chopping onions and potatoes and tomatoes and her ladyship, to my surprise, rolled up her sleeves and started helping. She grabbed some bacon and cut it into strips at my direction. I part-boiled the potatoes. (We have potatoes in everything, the Irish. I reckon it’s some sort of racial memory of the potato famine. I’m still like that to this day – see a potato, eat a potato.) Then she started cracking eggs one-handed like a chef, and whisking them up with a fork. I watched her with a raised eyebrow and she just grinned at me. Full of surprises, this one.

 

The omelette turned out to be really tasty. She’d added mint to the eggs and it really worked, somehow, to make it seem fresher and lighter. I beat it into me, forgetting my manners altogether, and she watched me with a raised eyebrow and a sly smile.

 

“What?!” I asked, annoyed.

 

“Nothing.” She kept watching me though.

 

After we’d eaten and washed up, I headed into the living room to check out the news. I hadn’t heard any more screams so I reckoned the zombies had either got full and went to sleep, or whatever they did, or they’d got shot. No such luck.

 

_“Shocking developments in West Belfast today. There have been reports of several hundred murders at a church on the outskirts of the city. The victims included men, women and children, and they were horribly mutilated. The perpetrators went on to brutally murder a patrol of British soldiers in the town square shortly after. Police are appealing for witnesses. Some of the killers appear to be on the loose. Police are particularly keen to interview two women who were seen with the soldiers who were later murdered. Anyone with information should call…”_

 

I looked over at her ladyship.

 

“I wonder where they went. They were so intent on killing anyone they saw, I can’t believe that they just wandered off for a nap after you drove them away,” she murmured thoughtfully.

 

I had been thinking the same thing. There weren’t many places where they could’ve gone, really, in our wee part of town, without getting some sort of notice. Unless they’d gone up into the mountains behind the estate and started eating their way through the sparse wildlife.

 

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now,” I said. “We need to get you down to the barracks and safe, and hopefully they’ll all get themselves shot and that’ll be the end of it.”

 

She nodded thoughtfully. Her eyes were nearly black, I found them fascinating. I tried to hide it, but they were so _dark._ And that hair…I just wanted to run my hands through it. I was staring.

 

She smirked. For fuck’s sake, she was even sexier when she smirked. I wanted to run out of the room with my hands over my face. But unfortunately I wasn’t five, so I had to stay there and act like an adult. I took a deep breath.

 

“Thank you for being so concerned for my welfare, Myka. I owe you my life.” She sounded sincere, so I smiled gently in response. I didn’t say anything though. I didn’t really know why I’d saved her life instead of running, as I should have done. I didn’t fancy getting my eyeballs ripped out by a neighbour – or at all. But Helena was so beautiful, with her tight clothes and her shiny hair and her pale skin. She was the first really beautiful thing I’d seen in a long time, and I couldn’t just let something that beautiful be destroyed without a fight.

 

That kind of thinking was what usually got me into trouble. I shook my head a bit, trying to clear it, and then I told her ladyship that I was going to have a nap. It had been a long day, and being in someone else’s company, no matter how easy it was, had exhausted me. I’d been alone for a long time. I practically ran up the stairs and set the alarm on my phone for 8.30. It got dark really late at that time of year. I fell asleep almost immediately. I was knackered after all the madness of the day.


	3. Bedlam at the Barracks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myka tries to get Helena safely back to the barracks, but things go a bit wrong.

The annoying beeping of my alarm finally dragged me, kicking and screaming, out of my nice warm bed. I sat up slowly and tried to get my bearings. It took me a few seconds to get my head round the events of the day. I wondered how my house guest was getting on. I got myself out of bed reluctantly, and made a quick trip to the bathroom. I splashed some water on my face and winced a bit at my bloodshot eyes.

 

I went downstairs and found Helena where I’d left her, in my mother’s armchair, two thirds of the way through the first book I’d lent her. I was impressed; that was some good going. I was a fast reader but it had taken me a day or two to get through it.

 

“Good morning, sunshine,” she murmured with a smile. I smiled back. I couldn’t help it. She was so beautiful, when she smiled it was…serene, or something. I couldn’t put my finger on it but she just made me feel better. It was a shame she was English. And going back to the peelers. But I couldn’t judge her for that. She was born over there, and I was born over here. We were products of our environments, and ours just happened to be on opposite sides.

 

She must have heard me moving about, because she’d made me another cup of tea. I was incredibly moved by that, for some reason, and my eyes were filling with tears. I spun on my heel and dashed into the kitchen, squeaking out something about biscuits. I wiped my eyes quickly and grabbed some chocolate biscuits from the cupboard.

 

She looked at me strangely when I came back in with my plate of biscuits. Apparently I hadn’t hidden my sudden burst of emotion as well as I’d thought. I did my best to look cool and calm. I put the biscuits on the coffee table next to her, helping myself to a handful, and sat down with my cup of tea, saluting her silently with my mother’s china.

 

She tactfully didn’t mention my weird behaviour. I was grateful. Social skills were not exactly my forte. I dipped my biscuits in my tea and scoffed them. Apparently table manners weren’t my forte either.

 

“So,” I said, picking crumbs off my t-shirt, “are you ready to face the wilds of West Belfast in the dark?”

 

She smiled widely.

 

“I think I shall be perfectly safe with you to protect me, Ms Bering.”

 

I nearly blushed. She was awfully sweet and it made me feel a bit tingly and daft. I hadn’t felt anything like this for a while, not since Sam. But that had been a fucking disaster in the end, so I was wary of those sorts of feelings. And she’d be gone very shortly. I swallowed, suddenly feeling like I had a massive lump in my throat.

 

“Right then, shall we get on with it?”

 

She nodded. She wasn’t much of a talker, unless it was about books. But then neither was I. That was probably why I’d been able to sleep with her in the house. She made me feel peaceful. It had been a long time since I’d felt at all peaceful. The doctor said I was hyper vigilant, and had recommended therapy and pills. I just wanted a couple of sleeping pills, just a few good night’s sleep. But he wasn’t having it unless I agreed to speak to someone. Speaking to someone would mean revisiting what had happened with Sam and Jimmy MacPherson, and I didn’t want to revisit any of it.

 

I got up briskly, scattering crumbs all over the carpet, and went to the back door. The rifle was still there where I’d left it, and the handgun was in a drawer in the sideboard. I checked them both out to make sure they were still functional. I’d had all this stuff drummed into me by Arthur so it was automatic. It would have been a bit unfortunate to run into a crowd of zombie weirdos and find that her Ladyship had decided to mess with the guns and left us defenceless for some reason. I reckoned she had to be at least slightly suicidal to do what she’d done that morning so I wasn’t taking any chances. I liked my hide intact, thank you very much.

 

Everything was functional so far as I could tell without stripping the rifle down to its parts. She watched me curiously from the doorway of the living room. I could see that she was itching to ask what I was doing and why, but I gave her my blankest stare and she said nothing.

 

I tiptoed out into the back, the rifle held against my right hand side, muzzle down. Her Ladyship followed me, and I stepped past her to lock the door. I got a bit closer than I had planned, and somehow managed to almost stick my nose in her hair. I heard her take in a sharp breath as she realised how close I was. I played it cool, turning the key in the lock and moving back as if nothing had happened, but I was a bit shaken myself. There was definitely an attraction there, on both sides, it seemed. She smelled…right, somehow. Like she fitted with me somehow. Being close enough to breathe her in was nice. More than nice. I took in a shaky breath and tried to get a grip on myself.

 

I moved slowly to the gate, looking round me at the houses overlooking the garden to make sure nobody was watching. My neighbours would never grass on me for having a gun or anything, I just didn’t want any of them seeing her and wondering who she was. If word got round, I might get identified as having been in the square when the peelers were killed, and I didn’t want to get lifted by the police for questioning. I hadn’t done anything wrong really, apart from taking the firearms with me, obviously. But the police and I had a difficult history and I didn’t fancy seeing Chief Superintendent Frederic again. She had this way of looking at me that made me worry that she could see all my sins. Like the way Father McCaffrey had always looked at me (while he still had eyes, that is.)

 

We sneaked out through the gate and into the alleyway. I reset my little traps on the gate while she watched curiously. She seemed to watch everything curiously. I liked it. She had a very open face, like everything was interesting and worthy of note. People around here didn’t have that openness. You kept your mouth closed and your head down if you wanted to survive, and people always had this pinched look around their mouths as they went about their daily business, as if they were trying to keep something in. She was a bit like a child, really. It was incredible.

 

No, not incredible. English. Protestant. I tried to think about the bad things. I must’ve looked like a lunatic because she was giving me the eyebrow again.

 

“Come on,” I said, a bit harshly, as if it hadn’t been me that was ogling her and wool-gathering. She gave me a small smirk, as if she knew that I was trying to cover up my own weirdness. I sighed and started moving off down the alleyway, keeping my eyes open the whole time as Arthur had taught me. We made our way through the back alleys quietly, not encountering a single soul. It was a bit strange, I thought, even for a Sunday. I would have expected to encounter the odd wino or glue-sniffer somewhere, but the place was dead. I was extra alert as a result. It wasn’t normal.

 

I led her to the woods at the foot of the mountain. She raised an eyebrow at me as I gestured for her to precede me through the gate into the trees.

 

“We’ll be less visible up here. I know a path to the back of the barracks. I can get you there safe and then get gone without the peelers seeing me.”

 

She nodded, searching my eyes for a moment. Did she still think I was going to hurt her? After saving her from the mental mob? Whatever she saw must have reassured her, though, because she just started walking in the direction I indicated.

 

The trees were dark. I was used to being up here at night. There were a lot of meetings up here where the old mass rock was. Back in the day when Catholicism was banned, they used a flat rock in the forest as an altar to celebrate the Eucharist. I could imagine the old priests back in those days. They stood with their back to the congregation, saying the whole mass in Latin. I’d have been afraid of turning round and everybody having disappeared in some sort of giant prank. But then I’ve got abandonment issues - priests probably don’t, what with them having their invisible heavenly father with them all the time.

 

I started off into the darkness but after a moment I heard a hoarse whisper of my name. I turned round and Helena was nowhere to be seen. Fuck.

 

I went back the way I’d come and found her sitting on the ground, her hair messed up and a confused look on her face.

 

“Are you all right, princess?”

 

She glared at me.

 

“How can you even see anything, never mind navigate in this godforsaken place?”

 

I held out my hand to her and helped her to her feet. Her hand was warm. I didn’t want to let go.

 

“I navigate it pretty easily, Your Ladyship. Because I have a little thing called night vision. Also, I know these woods like the back of my hand.”

 

She bit her lip.

 

“I think you’re going to have to hold on to me if you’re expecting me to get there in one piece.”

 

I looked at her sceptically for a moment. I knew she was a flirt, but…really? She did, however, look a bit wild around the eyes so maybe it wasn’t an act. And she had just gone on her arse. It was dark, and I was used to the place and she wasn’t. I hadn’t let go of her hand yet anyway so I just gave it a bit of a tug and pulled her along behind me, being careful to lead her around tree roots or anything else she might trip over, just in case she was as blind as she was making out.

 

It was nice, even if we weren’t holding hands because we wanted to, exactly. I’d missed the intimacy of being near another person. My liaisons with the local girls had been behind closed doors; of necessity, there was no hand-holding and lovey-dovey stuff. And my relationship with Sam was probably the least loving thing I could have imagined. It still made me shudder to look back on what I became when I was with him.

 

It took us about 45 minutes to make it to where the back door of the barracks was. I stopped near the edge of the trees and peered through the telescopic sight of the rifle at the rear gate. Oddly, it was slightly open and there were no guards there. There were always two. No-one usually bothered getting this close to the back gate for that reason – nobody needed to be getting into random firefights with the sentries when they were trying to keep things quiet.

 

I turned to her ladyship, who was looking at me impatiently.

 

“Well? What did you see?”

 

“There’s no-one there, and the gate’s open. Something’s not right. I’m not sure it’s the best idea to be going in there, Helena.”

 

She frowned.

 

“Well what the hell else am I going to do? I can’t very well just go and call a cab. I need to go to a police station or an army barracks or I’m not going to get back home in one piece.”

 

I thought for a moment. She was right. Taxi drivers had a way of making people disappear if they ventured into the wrong part of town. An English person in this part of town would never be seen again, just as a Catholic in East Belfast would never be found unless it was by a dog walker or an early morning jogger. (They were always the ones that found bodies – at least if you believed what they show on CSI.)

 

“I’ll go in with you. Just to check what’s going on. But you hold on to the rifle – you can tell them you were bringing it back because the fellas you were with were killed. Can you shoot at all?”

 

She shook her head. Never mind, that would have been too easy. I pulled the handgun out of my jeans pocket where it had been digging in to my hip, and stuck it down the back of my trousers so my t-shirt covered it. If I was lucky, I would be able to get out of there before anyone saw it and I could be home before midnight. If I got arrested, at least it would only be for illegal possession of a firearm – Arthur would probably be able to get me off with probation or something for that; I’d seen him do that before. I handed her the rifle, warning her to keep it pointed at the ground. The safety was on but accidents happen. If she pointed it downward and it went off, at least she’d probably just blow her big toe off rather than shooting someone in the face.

 

I cautiously took a couple of steps out of the sheltering darkness of the trees. I expected to hear shouts and have searchlights blinding me within seconds, but there weren’t any. It was dead quiet. We were able to walk up to the back door and walk straight in. One of the most heavily guarded places in Belfast apart from Stormont, and we were able to walk straight in without seeing a soul. You’d think that would have made me stop and run in the other direction at high speed. But alas, my stupid brain was too occupied with getting a certain hot English journalist to safety. If it’d been a horror film, I’d have been that girl that runs _up_ the stairs while everybody is yelling at the screen. As I pushed open the heavy inner door of the barracks, which doubled as a police station, the smell hit me. Iron and faeces. That probably wasn’t good, right?

 

I turned to the princess and put my finger on my lips, indicating for her to give me the rifle. I pulled the handgun out of its resting place down my buttcrack and passed it to her. I whispered instructions in her ear. She looked at me, wide-eyed, and nodded.

 

It was about then that I realised that I’d left the spare magazines for the SA80 on the coffee table. They were digging into my arse when I sat down so I took them out. I couldn’t bloody believe it. I pulled out the magazine and had a look. There were barely 15 rounds in there. Fuck.

 

I clicked the magazine back in and chambered a round, and took a couple of steps in. There was a small security booth where they checked people’s ID and the like as they entered the station. It was empty. Another sign that should have sent me running in the other direction like a gazelle in the Serengeti, but I needed to work out what the hell was going on for Helena’s sake, if not my own.

 

I passed by the booth slowly, rounding a corner where I came upon yet another scene of complete and utter chaos, for the second time in 24 hours. There were pieces of what used to be people everywhere. Tattered pieces of police and army uniforms were everywhere. And so were they. Ravening, crazed, black and grey-eyed freaks. I managed to stay silent but her Ladyship rounded the corner after me and whispered, “Shit” under her breath involuntarily. The sibilance of the “sh” sound carried to the nearest crazy fucker and its head snapped up. It looked like it used to be a policeman, but it was so drenched in blood that the clothes it wore could have been any colour. It started making its way to us, hissing strangely as it did so. Its hissing carried to the next, and so on and so on. I started backing up, thinking it might be a good idea to get the fuck out of there at high speed, when Helena made a weird, high-pitched noise. There were more of them coming through the back gate behind us.

 

There was another corridor on our right. There was no point in staying quiet anymore so I told her to run, shouting in her face, and I sprayed the nearest zombies with a few bullets in the face to slow the pack down. Then I took off on her coattails, nearly running her over. I’d been in this place a few times, after the bombing and then at a later date as a…customer. But I hadn’t been in this section and I hadn’t a fucking clue where I was going. I just kept running, throwing the odd look over my shoulder at the crazy fuckers. They’d slowed down – a few of them had started eating the dead ones. But there were still a shitload of them behind us. Not close enough to make me actually shite myself, but still too close.

 

We came to a staircase and the choice was up or down. Down there would only be one or two basement levels at most; up, there should be plenty of places to hide. I grabbed Helena’s arm and pushed her up in front of me. I turned again and fired a couple of rounds at the zombie fuckers to slow them down. I was painfully aware of the lack of bullets in the magazine, and really, really fucked off that I’d left the spares back at the house. I could see them, sitting there smugly on the coffee table. It was a bit like when you get to work and remember your keys are in the bowl by the door and you’ve pulled the door closed behind you. Only a tad more deadly.

 

I huffed and puffed my way up the first flight of stairs and Helena had already pulled the door open. The corridor was empty of people and blood, so it seemed like a good place to go looking for a place to hide, or maybe even some other actual alive humans who didn’t want to eat our fingers.

 

We grabbed each other’s hands again as we ran. It calmed me, touching her, despite the circumstances. Her hand in mine was satisfying, like an electrical circuit being completed. There were doors all along the corridor. Offices, all of which were empty. Probably for support staff. So whatever had happened had probably happened after their working hours were over. The zombies hadn’t come through the door from the stairway yet. I was assuming they weren’t the brightest, but I figured they’d be able to follow scents at least. They always did in the films. So I kept Helena moving, searching for other humans or somewhere to hide, or at least some more weapons. In the last office there was a small locked armoury with some shotguns, rifles and various handguns. The lock was complicated and I was no locksmith or master thief so I just shot it a couple of times, muzzle jammed against the wood. It popped open easily then, and I grabbed a shotgun and slung it over my shoulder on the convenient strap. I took two handguns and stuck them down the back of my jeans, glad I’d put a belt on that morning. They were heavy and without a belt my trousers would’ve been round my ankles – not so useful when you’re trying to outrun the undead, I find. I jammed spare magazines into every pocket, getting Helena to fill her pockets too. My jacket was light because of the weather but it still had pockets. I despise coats and trousers without pockets; I mean, what is the actual point? I reloaded the rifle and grabbed a couple of grenades as a last resort. Helena had been keeping an eye on the corridor, wide-eyed. She turned her head just as I was grabbing the grenades and whispered urgently that they were coming. I pulled the pin on one of the grenades and ran to the door, flinging the small explosive as far down the corridor as I could, and dragged Helena after me once again in a headlong flight to try and find some semblance of safety.

 

The explosion was extremely loud in the tall, echoey corridor. My ears were ringing and I didn’t think Helena was faring any better. But on the plus side, it had taken down part of the wall and it didn’t look like we were being followed for the time being. We ran through a couple more doors and passed empty offices. The place was huge and like a maze. When we had a good couple of doors behind us, I stopped to catch my breath. She was looking at me strangely.

 

“What?” I asked, between gasping breaths. I needed to start running again; I was unfit from too many hours spent reading. If I’d have known I was going to be taking part in the zombie Olympics I’m pretty sure I would have trained harder.

 

“How are you so bloody calm? You just threw a grenade at a group of flesh-eating crazy people and you look like you’ve just gone out for a run.”

 

I shrugged. I don’t know why I never got nervous in situations like this. Or not exactly like this, but combat situations. Yeah, I got adrenaline pumping, I had a natural fear response, but I wasn’t really feeling anything. I had stopped feeling very much the day I was in this very building, in the morgue, identifying the remains of my baby sister.

 

Helena stared at me for a moment longer, and I started to think there was something on my face. But something about my previous train of thought – Tracy – made me think. The morgue was in the basement, as they usually are. But it had thick steel doors and a garage that usually had three or four police Land Rovers parked up in it. If we could get in there, we should be able to keep the zombies out by blocking the doors, and we could get the fuck out of here in an armoured car.

 

I filled Helena in on my tentative plan. I didn’t know how we’d get to the morgue, but given our limited options, it seemed like the best idea. We carried on in the same direction, keeping our eyes and ears open for any people, alive or…well, whatever those things were. We came to another staircase which looked like it was the central one for the barracks. There was, miraculously, a lift on the other side of the stairs, only a few feet away. Which was just as well, because there were noises now from the corridor behind us, and noise from both up and down the stairs. Hissing. I ran to press the lift button, and it was almost comical watching the lights as it went from floor to floor. You know that feeling when you’re late for a meeting or whatever and then the lift won’t come, and you know you’re going to be even later? Well, this was fuck all like that. Because the last time I checked, your manager doesn’t rip off your ears and eat them if the lift doesn’t get you to work on time.

 

I whispered to Helena to cover the lift with her handgun and fire at anything that moved. I backed up, keeping her behind me, and waited to see which direction would attack us first. It was the upstairs group that got there first. They were soldiers, or the remains of them at least. Bits of them had been shot away. I started taking careful shots at their heads. One down, two down, miss, three down…then the lift dinged behind me. Helena did a tiny shriek and the handgun went off, booming as it echoed in the small metal space of the lift.

 

“Would you mind awfully not shooting at me?”

 

Of course, it would be Chief Superintendent Frederic. My number one fan. I shouted at Helena to get in the lift, and pulled the pin on another grenade, rolling it carefully across the floor so it would explode hopefully in the middle of the three groups of zombies that were converging on us. I backed into the lift, still firing. The noise was thunderous in there. I was pretty sure there would be at least one casualty in our small group of survivors – my fucking hearing. I heard myself shout, “Close the fucking doors,” and then the grenade went off. It was too far away for any of us to get hurt by the blast, but being the closest to the door, I had the pleasure of being spattered with the remains of the zombies that were nearest to the lift. Helena and Chief Superintendent Frederic were at the wrong angle to get soaked; lucky them. I smelled like wet arse and blood. The doors finally closed and the lift descended slowly. I let out a sigh of relief, echoed behind me by Helena. I let the muzzle of the rifle drop and turned around to check that the other two were okay. Helena’s eyes widened. God knows what was on my face.

 

“Miss Bering. What a pleasure to see you alive and well.” Chief Superintendent Frederic was always pleasant and polite; it was one of the things I hated most about her. Her snooty English accent and her precise diction made everything she said sound mocking to me. Or maybe it was the fact that she was the one who showed me Tracy’s remains. That was hardly her fault, I suppose. I still couldn’t forgive it. The meetings we’d had since then had only reinforced my opinion. She was questioning me for murder, so I could understand her being a little sarcastic.

 

I sketched a mocking little bow.

 

“Chief Superintendent Frederic; always a pleasure.” It was not a pleasure; my tone made that abundantly clear. I felt dizzy, suddenly. Why was I dizzy?

 

Helena’s voice broke through my musings.

 

“Myka, you’re bleeding.”

 

I said, “No, it’s theirs.”

 

But it wasn’t – not all of it, anyway. There was something in my neck. I stupidly pulled at it – something hard and sharp was embedded in there. Blood started to gush out. Helena put her hand on my neck. It felt really warm and pleasant. I smiled at her and passed out.


	4. Mouthy Myka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myka wakes up in the morgue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of swearing, consider yourself warned. And drugs, involuntarily. And ogling.

* * *

When I came to, I was on a morgue table. Not the most auspicious start to a new day, I suppose, but it was probably better than the alternative – after all, I had woken up. I lifted my head a bit and found that I was constrained by a bandage of some sort on my neck. It fucking hurt, too.

 

“Oh thank God. She’s awake. Dr Calder, she’s awake!” It was my wee English honey’s voice. When _that_ thought passed through my mind, I realised I was high as a kite.

 

An older blonde woman appeared from behind me. She was wearing a white coat so my incredibly sharp mind realised that she was probably the doctor.

 

“Hello, Miss Bering. You had us all worried for a while there.” She was very pretty, and American, so I didn’t have to hate her. I liked it when I didn’t have to hate people. I smiled.

 

“You’ve lost a lot of blood, so please try not to move too much. We’re giving you some fluids but it will take a while for you to get back to full strength.”

 

“Thanks, Dr Cougar.” She laughed at me, and wandered back to the other room. Why was she laughing?

 

I smiled again, eyes unfocused, and turned my head a bit until I could see her. Her Ladyship. She was slightly behind the table, leaning forward, her hands close to my shoulder but not quite touching. I smiled at her again. She was pretty.

 

“Thank you.” She blushed. She was pretty when she blushed.

 

“And thank you for that too.”

 

Fuck. Was I saying all this out loud?

 

“Yes, darling,” she said, stifling a laugh. I bit my lip to stop myself saying anything else. My neck hurt, a lot.

 

“What happened?” There, that was safe enough, right?

 

“You got hit by a piece of shrapnel. Metal. Dr Calder and Dr Jinks were able to remove it and suture your artery. It was very close, Myka.” She bit her lip.

 

“It’s alright, love,” I drawled, drunkenly. “I’m fine, look at me. And so are you. Fine, that is. Look at you.” And I did – look at her, that is. Upside down, but I still had a good ogle. She blushed again.

 

“Fuck me, I’m high as a kite. What did yous give me?”

 

Helena chuckled.

 

“Ketamine, Myka. That’s all they had. They’re not really set up for surgery. They had to use drugs that had been confiscated in a raid. You’re lucky you didn’t end up with heroin.”

 

“This is some good stuff, I’m telling you. Did you have some too?”

 

She giggled. I liked her. She made me feel…nice.

 

“Thank you, once again, darling. You’re very talkative, aren’t you?”

 

I said that out loud again. Fuck.

 

She was laughing out loud now. I stared at her, my mouth hanging open. She was so beautiful, with her head thrown back, and her pale skin, and her freckles, and her eyes…

 

Her mouth was covering mine. I was being kissed. Then she was gone.

 

“Sorry, darling. You just wouldn’t shut up. And you were saying such nice things.”

 

“Sorry, m’lady.” I tried for sassy, but I think it came out starry-eyed instead. It wasn’t my fault she was so bloody gorgeous, now, was it?

 

She was blushing again. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I was fucking talking again. I put my finger on my lip like the teachers taught me in primary school for when it was quiet time. Maybe that would do the job.

 

She was still laughing. I just stared at her, wide-eyed, finger on my lip, enjoying the view. I don’t know how long for, but then I was asleep again.

 

When I woke again she was sitting to my right, half asleep by the look of her, and holding my hand. I twitched as I woke, and she looked up, smiling.

 

Bollocks. My talkative ten minutes had just come back to me. My face must have been a picture. She started to laugh again. I didn’t blame her. I was scundered. (That means embarrassed, but it is much more expressive than the word embarrassed if you ask me.)

 

“Sorry,” I said, almost too quietly to be heard. She did hear, though, and smiled softly.

 

“Don’t be embarrassed, my dear. You are hilarious, and very sweet, when you’re high.”

 

I rolled my eyes. I was not sweet. I was a predator, a shark of the streets. Or whatever. Not sweet.

 

She moved a bit closer to my face.

 

“Don’t worry,” she whispered conspiratorially, “I won’t tell anyone. It’ll be our little secret.”

 

To my eternal shame, I giggled. She smiled softly. She was so beautiful when she smiled.

 

“I didn’t say anything just now, did I?” I asked her.

 

“No, why?”

 

Thank Christ for that. I could think what I liked, now, without it coming out of my stupid gob.

 

“No reason.”

 

She grinned. She knew rightly why I was asking. I wanted to kiss her.

 

“Miss Bering.” It was Chief Superintendent Frederic. Perfect bloody timing.

 

I turned my head. She’d appeared to my left, as if by magic.

 

“Hello,” I said flatly.

 

“I believe we all owe you a debt of gratitude. You saved my life and Miss Wells’ before you were injured. Thank you.”

 

Fuck that, how the hell did I save her life? I hated the bloody woman. Well, not hated. All right, I sort of liked her actually, but she reminded me of some very dark times in my life.

 

“You’re welcome,” I said stiffly.

 

“I was wondering whether you had any plans as to how to get out of this morgue?”

 

I looked at her. It was her barracks; I would’ve thought she’d have a plan.

 

“I was hoping there might be a Land Rover or two in the garage. Don’t they usually keep a few here?”

 

She nodded. “There are several armoured vehicles here, but unfortunately the keys are in the hands of the soldiers that drove them here. Normally I would just call one of them to drive me somewhere, but…” she shrugged expressively.

 

You’d think they’d have had a key safe or something in the morgue so the fucking cars could be used in an emergency. Obviously that would be too clever.

 

“Can the windows be shot out or anything?” I asked Frederic.

 

“No. They are bulletproof and heavily reinforced. It would take concentrated firing for some time. I’m fairly sure it would be a pointless exercise. And we might need the bullets.”

 

She was right. I chewed on a fingernail, thinking about our options. To my surprise, her Ladyship piped up beside me.

 

“I might be able to get us into the vehicles.”

 

I looked at her in astonishment. She’d seemed so…vanilla.

 

She grinned at me proudly.

 

“I am a bit of an engineer. And I shadowed a former car thief for a series of articles once. He showed me the basics. Are they terribly hard to break into, Mrs Frederic?”

 

_Mrs_ Frederic? Someone had _married_ the Chief Superintedent of Woodvale Barracks?

 

“Moderately, I would imagine,” she said dryly. “I haven’t attempted it myself, however.”

 

Helena let go of my hand and stood, wandering off to speak to someone else. Who else was here?

 

Frederic spoke, as if she’d heard my thoughts.

 

“It’s just us and the two doctors, Dr Jinks and Dr Calder. Everyone else is dead or hiding. Or one of those things.”

 

I looked at Frederic. She looked back.

 

“It was you in the town square then? You and Miss Wells?”

 

I nodded.

 

“Why didn’t you come in?”

 

I looked at her, raising an eyebrow as if to say, “Really?”

 

She looked at me for a moment, pursing her lips. Considering. After a moment, she spoke again.

 

“Do you know how this started?”

 

I told her about mass, about Jimmy from the folk group, the soldiers. Helena. She listened carefully.

 

“Did anything unusual happen at the mass, or before? Did anyone give you anything?”

 

I suddenly remembered the freebies from the chewing gum company. Did I still have them?

 

“Where’s my jacket?” I asked, trying to sit up. Fuck. My neck really hurt.

 

“Dr Calder?” Chief Superintendent Frederic called.

 

The woman appeared.

 

“Yes, ma’am?” she asked. Who the fuck says Ma’am in this day and age? Police are weird.

 

“Do you have Miss Bering’s jacket?”

 

She went off to get it.

 

“It’s lucky you asked; I was about to put it in the furnace.”

 

It was minging, covered in blood and gore. I grabbed it and fished around in the pockets until I found the small packet with the minty strips in it.

 

“They were handing these out before mass,” I said, holding them up.

 

Chief Superintendent Frederic asked Dr Calder to take a look at the mints to see if they were just mints, or something else. Dr Calder scurried off to consult with her as-yet-unrevealed colleague. Chief Superintendent Frederic smiled at me.

 

“Thank you, Miss Bering. I know you have no reason to help me, but it is much appreciated.”

 

I mumbled something non-committal. She smiled at me softly and went off towards where the doctors and Helena were. I closed my eyes for a few minutes. Which turned into an hour or two, because when I woke up, Helena was back, sitting on a chair beside my resting place (not my final one, I hoped) and holding my hand again. Thankfully I didn’t have emotional Tourette’s again. I was able to think that her hand felt nice in mine without blurting out my undying love. Thank the baby Jesus.

 

“Good morning, sunshine.” I smiled at her. Was it only a few hours before that she’d said that to me? I had no concept of time. She smiled back. She was so beautiful when she smiled. I was glad I’d saved her back in the square. I’d have missed that smile.

 

“What’s going on? Did you get in the Land Rovers?”

 

She grimaced.

 

“We did, but they are very effectively immobilised by some sort of electronic coding device. I could probably get round it, given the time, but not with the tools we have here.”

 

I huffed out a heavy breath.

 

“So what now?”

 

She shrugged.

 

“Mrs Frederic has been talking to the doctors. They think the mints that were handed out started this off but now it’s out of control. The infection is passing from person to person, whatever it is. It might not do us any good to get out of the barracks after all. It depends how widespread this all is.”

 

I frowned.

 

“Have they checked the news and the internet and all that?” I asked.

 

“No signal in here for smartphones. We’re in the basement. The doctors do use the internet but they use an office upstairs – well outside of our little barricade.” She waved a hand to an area behind me and to my left. I pulled myself up cautiously and turned my upper body, to avoid pulling any stitches in my neck. The heavy steel doors of the morgue were locked and there were a few metal bars that looked like they might once have been part of an IV stand shoved through the handles on the inside in case the lock failed. They’d also stacked some heavy medical equipment against the inside of the doors. Unless the zombies were smarter than they looked, they weren’t getting in. And it didn’t look like we were getting out either.

 

I turned myself gingerly to have a look around the rest of the place. I was in the bit where they put the bodies and did the post-mortems. Opposite was a door to what looked like some sort of lab. I could see Chief Superintendent Frederic’s back through the glass of the door. I assumed that’s where the others were. Aside from that, there was a small storage room and a desk and a few chairs. Not the most comfortable place to spend an apocalypse. But it was probably better than the alternative.

 

“I thought you were going to die.”

 

I turned myself back towards Helena.

 

“Well, I didn’t, so…” I shrugged slightly, then winced as something in my neck pulled.

 

“You saved my life, Myka. Multiple times now, really. I don’t want you to die.”

 

“Well, that’s a relief, because neither do I want me to die.” I smiled as she looked hurt, and then continued, “And I don’t want you to die either, you big eejit. Or else why would I have bothered saving your arse ‘multiple times’?” I said the last bit in my best posh English accent.

 

She shot me a weak glare, and then smiled. But now that I was near to her again, she took my hand. I looked at our linked hands, and then looked at her with a raised eyebrow. She shrugged and smiled. What the hell, I thought. I smiled back.

 

We sat there in silence for a while, hands linked, just content. Trust me to need a zombie apocalypse to quiet the chaos in my mind.

 

The sound of gunshots came from outside. I tensed, my hand searching automatically for a weapon.

 

“Relax,” she said. “It’s been going on for a while. It’s outside the barracks. I expect it’s police or whoever defending themselves against the infected people.”

 

_‘Relax? Have you ever tried relaxing when someone is firing a gun near you?’_ I wanted to yell at her. I didn’t. I just ground my teeth for a moment, breathing in and holding it for a long time, then letting go. Lather, rinse, repeat. She looked at me in concern, her hand squeezing mine gently.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

“Yeah, just dandy, princess,” I grated out. I regretted it immediately. She was being nice, I was being an arsehole. I breathed in again.

 

“Sorry.” I didn’t look at her, kept my eyes closed.

 

“It’s okay,” she said quietly. “I understand.”

 

I looked at her, really looked at her. She did understand. It was nice. I was using that word a lot since I’d met her. Perhaps it wasn’t the most effusive compliment I could have used, but it was fitting. She quieted the roaring inside my head, and that was nice. Nice was just perfect, as far as I was concerned. Nice was the warmth of her hand in mine. The feeling of her thumb rubbing across my knuckles. The silence in the room, and in my mind. I would take nice over ‘rip your clothes off’ passion. Although that was also there, not far under the surface. Her eyes were dark. I wondered what mine looked like, just then.

 

Chief Superintendent Frederic, Dr Calder and Dr Jinks chose that moment to return to my improvised bedchamber. They gathered round the morgue slab and I took the opportunity to lie down again. My fucking neck was killing me. I was tempted to ask for more ketamine but I didn’t want to end up proposing to her Ladyship while I was high. Chief Superintendent Frederic took a moment to raise an eyebrow at my hand, still joined with Helena’s. I gave her the hairy eyeball right back; what the fuck did it have to do with her, exactly? She made a little ‘hmmph’ noise and I flared my nostrils at her. It was very satisfying, for some reason. I grinned.

 

“Dr Calder and Dr Jinks have discovered that the mints that were passed out before church are the culprit. They contain a virus that we believe has now mutated and can pass from person to person, presumably through bites. So those who don’t get eaten entirely become the monsters that have been attacking everyone.”

 

Well, that couldn’t be good.

 

“Is there a way to cure it?” asked Helena, her brow furrowed adorably. Hang on, since when did I use the word adorably? Maybe I got infected with something too.

 

“We don’t know, just yet.” That was Dr Calder. She was a very attractive woman, I couldn’t help but notice. It was a bit bizarre; one day of murder and mayhem and I was turning into Hugh Hefner. I shook my head a little bit and then regretted it as my neck stung like a bastard.

 

Dr Calder scolded me. “Stay still, young woman, or you will pull your stitches. We stitched an artery, you know, and I’m a pathologist, not a surgeon. You don’t want them to reopen, believe me. You would likely be dead in less than a minute.”

 

I filed that little factoid away; if the zombies got to me and I was weaponless, I would be able to pull the stitches out so I’d die quickly, instead of having to endure the feeling of being eaten alive.

 

“We are working on an antiviral agent that should kill it off. But it might very well kill the host too. There’s really no way to know.”

 

I shrugged a little. Dead was better than whatever the hell those things were. I’d much rather be dead than eating the local priest as a snack. Helena made a similar gesture.

 

“Dr Jinks and Dr Calder are going to continue with their work to create an antiviral agent. But to test it, we’re going to need an infected person.” She looked at me.

 

It took a moment, and then it dawned on me, what she was suggesting.

 

“Oh, fuck no, Frederic. You don’t really expect me to go out there and grab one of those fuckers, do you?”

 

She raised that bloody eyebrow at me again.

 

“We both know, Miss Bering, that you are incredibly resourceful, and well trained with many weapons. I have no doubt that you can incapacitate one of the infected and return here safely.”

 

“Well, I’m glad you have such faith in my abilities, Chief Superintendent Frederic, but why on earth should I risk my neck like this? Have you not got any specialist soldiers or whatever who can fly in and sort this all out? Isn’t that what you Brits do? Come in somewhere and kill everyone and take over?”

 

She spoke softly all of a sudden. “We didn’t kill your family, Miss Bering. You know that.”

 

I did know that. But I still blamed her.


	5. Hi Jinks (and Pete)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet Jinks and Pete

It took me a while to formulate a plan. I got the doctor – Calder – to take out the IV that was replacing my lost blood with fluids of some kind, and had a wander about until I found what I needed. They had a fire axe. I’d never seen a fire axe before, except on TV. I was mighty happy to see that one though, I can tell you. If Chief Superintendent Frederic’s idea was going to work, I needed to be able to immobilise the poor unfortunate soul. There was piles of duct tape around, some of which I appropriated, but while it was the more humane option in case Dr Calder’s antiviral whatsit actually worked, it just wasn’t feasible. Not for one person. And much as I didn’t like admitting it, Frederic was right. I was the only one who was safe to do what needed to be done. I ran through the steps in my head to be sure but there was just no way to immobilise one of them and wrap them up in duct tape without putting myself (and by extension everyone else) at too much risk. If I got turned into one of them, no-one else had the skill to deal with these infected people, and that meant that everyone else in the morgue would probably be dead soon enough. So that meant…well, I was gonna have to immobilise them at a safe distance, and as quietly as possible. Which meant the axe. Helena watched me worriedly as I wandered around slightly drunkenly picking up random items and talking to myself. In the end up I grabbed a thick pair of purple rubber gloves that I presumed were used for autopsies, given the venue, and a plastic face shield. I asked to borrow a leather jacket that was on the back of a chair – it belonged to the lady doctor, apparently, and since we were about the same size, it should work. She gave me permission and I got myself ready.

 

There were a few bits and pieces in the morgue that presumably had belonged to the drivers of the now useless armoured vehicles. I appropriated a bulletproof vest and fitted it over the tight leather jacket, and then pulled on the rubber gloves. I wanted as much protection from those zombie teeth as I could get. I was surprised, actually, that I hadn’t yet turned into one of them. I had been sprayed with a huge amount of zombie blood and other, more unmentionable bits, more than likely, and I had sustained a serious wound at the same time. Either I was incredibly lucky, or this infection was transferred only through saliva and not blood.

 

Chief Superintendent Frederic was watching me. I gave her another one of my special looks, the ones I reserved for people that really got on my fucking nerves. She surprised me by smiling fondly. I scowled even harder. She didn’t get to look at me fondly.

 

Helena was also watching me, silently but with concern. I looked back questioningly but for once not mockingly.

 

“I suppose I needn’t ask if you will allow me to come with you?” she asked, in a soft, low voice. I loved her voice. I could listen to it all day. I never thought I’d say that about an English accent. Since the day my family was obliterated, the sound of their accents had repulsed me, filled me with an intense hatred. Even after I’d changed, after Martino and MacPherson, I still had a visceral reaction to those rounded vowels and dropped ‘aitches. Until her Ladyship had sauntered into my life, at least.

 

“No, you needn’t, my dear. No point in two of us getting ourselves killed or zombied. Zombificated? Zomberised?” I chuckled to myself. She did not.  She looked small. Her arms were wrapped around her abdomen, holding herself together. It made me feel strange – both warmed that she was concerned about me, and sad that she had to feel like that. I wanted to protect her. I hadn’t felt that desire for a long time. I was much more likely to want to destroy than to protect, until today apparently.

 

I went over to her, probably looking like a right goon in my makeshift armour. I crouched next to her, wincing as I moved too fast and pulled at the stitches in my neck.

 

“Listen, Helena. I’ll do my best to come back safe, okay? And if I don’t come back, or I come back as one of them, at least I’ll have died trying to do something worthwhile for once.” I took her hand in my rubbery paw.

 

“If I don’t come back, but I’m turned into one of those crazies, I want you to put a bullet in my head, okay? No hesitation – just pull the trigger and let me go. Write a nice article about me. And make sure you call her plenty of names, all right?” I indicated Frederic with a sneer. Helena laughed, involuntarily, at my theatrics. And then she kissed me. It was soft. I wasn’t expecting it. I was girding my loins for battle, and I’d stopped to reassure her, but my head was already out there with the loonies, thinking about how to approach it. Her lips were a bit dry, which was understandable in the circumstances, but they moved against me in a way that I could only describe as tender. Tender wasn’t something I’d seen much of since I lost my mother. I’m sure there’s some sort of weird Oedipal reference to be made in here somewhere, but let’s not, and say we did, okay? The point is, I liked kissing her. She smelled nice, and kissing her and breathing her in was infinitely preferable to chopping up people to experiment on. After a moment, she drew back.

 

“That’s the second time I’ve done that tonight. What are you doing to me, Myka Bering?”

 

I winked. “I’m sure you’ll work it out, Your Ladyship.” She pouted. I grinned.

 

I carefully pulled myself up using the morgue table, and after shooting a last wink at Helena, went to grab the rest of the weapons I’d brought with me. Shotgun, rifle, handguns, a couple of the bigger knives from the morgue supplies, and a big wad of tourniquets (the proper cotton ones, not those shitey paper things) that I stuffed down the front of the bulletproof vest. And finally, a hammer and another faceplate.

 

The other doctor made an appearance then. He was a tall fella, also from America, like the cougar doctor. He had reddish blonde hair and blue eyes. I liked the look of him, he had a cheeky face. He was called Steve Jinks. He helped me move the barricade items back carefully, as quietly as possible. I pulled out the makeshift bars, handing them to him and instructing him to put them back as quickly as humanly possible, as soon as I was gone. He had a handgun in a holster at his belt, and I told him not to be afraid to use it. Head shots if possible. He nodded grimly. I took out the last bit of metal and slipped through the opening. I heard the soft clatter of metal behind me as he replaced the bars, and shuffling of heavy objects as he and presumably Helena and Dr Calder re-barricaded the doors. I didn’t expect that Chief Superintendent Frederic would be lending a hand. She might break a nail.

 

The corridor outside was empty. I presumed that the zombies were too mindless to work out how to use a lift. There was a staircase that led down here but it was out of the way from the main section of the barracks so maybe that’s why they hadn’t made it down here. Whatever the reason, I was glad of it. The further away they were from Helena and the rest of them, the better. I pulled the plastic face guard on and started walking.

 

I passed the lift and went to find the staircase. I wanted to be as unobtrusive as possible. I wasn’t planning to take on a load of them; I just wanted one. I tiptoed up the stairs, feeling a tad dizzy, if the truth were told. I’d lost a lot of blood and I honestly had no idea when I’d last eaten. The last thing I needed was to pass out from low blood sugar. The zombies were lucky, they just had to eat each other if they got hungry. I thought Chief Superintendent Frederic might take offense if I tried to eat her eyeballs because I was peckish.

 

As I reached the top of the morgue stairs, I looked around me carefully, eyes and rifle moving it tandem as I’d been trained. There was nothing and no-one in the small corridor section that led to the double doors. Out there, though, there would more than likely be all sorts of mayhem for me to enjoy. I took a deep breath and used the muzzle of the rifle to push open one of the doors.

 

I emerged into one of the side corridors of the barracks. It was, like the corridors upstairs that Helena and I had pelted along earlier, completely empty. I was a bit disappointed. I was feeling a bit John McClaine, Yippy-Kay-Yay motherfuckers, and all that. And there was no-one to play with. That was when I came to my senses a bit. I wasn’t bloody John McClaine. I was barely Johnny English. I took another deep breath and caught a grip of my knickers (figuratively speaking). I was here to grab one of the crazed undead, to try and stop a zombie apocalypse, not to play at being an action hero.

 

I decided to turn left, completely at random, and went creeping along the corridor, checking all the rooms as I did so. I went in and out of four or five empty rooms before I came to one that appeared to be barricaded from the inside. I wondered if that meant that there was someone else alive in there. I knocked on the door quietly. There was no reply. I tried again. No reply. I said a soft, “Hello,” and suddenly the door was pulled open, and a man of a similar height to me in a policeman’s uniform was standing there, training a revolver on me.

 

He stared at me for a moment. He was good-looking, in a chiselled kind of way. Not my type, really, but he was pretty enough. I raised an eyebrow. I was doing that a lot, for some reason.

 

“All right, big lad?” I said.

 

“Thank fuck for that.” He enveloped me in a massive, crushing hug. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. You might remember how I don’t like to be touched? Well, this was pretty much a “How to” for pissing me off. Invade my personal space? – check. Put your big muscly arms around me? – check. Squeeze me so I feel like a stress ball? – check. Sweat all over me? – check. You get the idea. Anyway, I tensed and he let me go, looking a bit embarrassed.

 

“Sorry, love, but you’re the first live human I’ve seen in about twelve hours. I thought I was the only one in here.”

 

I let him off for the squeezing and invading of space. He was obviously scared and lonely. I got that.

 

“Well, I’m trying to catch one of those things for Chief Superintendent Frederic. Do you work for her?” I asked.

 

He gaped at me. “Catch one of them? Why in the name of Jesus would you want to do that?”

 

I smiled. “Just for a laugh, constable. What do you think? Frederic wants one so the doctors can try to cure it with some sort of antivirus thing they’re cooking up in the morgue.”

 

He stared at me. “And you came up here, on your own, to grab a zombie and bring it back?”

 

I nodded. When he put it that way, it didn’t sound that clever. But it needed doing, and I was the only one around with the training, so…

 

“All right then, She-Ra. Let’s go and catch a fucking zombie.”

 

I was pleased that there was someone else here who was from Norn Iron. Even if he was probably a Protestant. But you can’t have everything.

 

“What’s your name then? Sarah Connor?”

 

“Not exactly. Myka Bering.” I grinned at him and offered him a rubber-clad hand. He shook it.

 

“Peter Lattimer. I go by Pete.”

 

“Not He-Man, then? Or the Terminator?” I grinned at him. I liked him, he was a bit of an eejit. He grinned back. We’d get on fine, me and him.

 

I explained my tentative plan. He nodded. We agreed that we would hunt out some of the crazies, and try and decide on how to grab one when we scoped out the situation.

 

We came upon a handful of them, eating God knows what off the floor of a nearby office. Whatever it was, it mercifully wasn’t moving. We watched them for a moment, and Pete said he had an idea. And off he went. He started yelling, waving his arms, and a dozen heads snapped up. I was on the opposite side of the doorway from him, and he caught my eye and said, “Grab the last one. I’ll try to get to the morgue later.”

 

I nodded helplessly. The zombies came storming out of the room after him. Pete had shown them a clean pair of heels and was some distance away, drawing them away from me. The last one left the room and I grabbed it by the back of the jacket. It had once been a soldier, judging from the camouflage that was still visible under the blood and gore that covered the thing. I kicked its legs out from under it and pulled the axe out of its makeshift holster on my back. I had one arm off before the thing could move, and then the other. It squirmed, trying to get its feet under it. I shifted and then chopped at its thigh. The leg didn’t come off right away, so I had to swing again. And then I repeated the process. As soon as all four limbs were gone, I dropped the axe and pulled out the wodge of tourniquets from the front of the bulletproof vest. I crouched down next to him where he was struggling like a turtle on its back and pulled the tourniquets tightly over the remains of his – its – thighs, and then the arms. And then the final, and most distasteful, part of my plan. I carefully grabbed its forehead, carefully avoiding its mouth, pushing its head down against the floor, and smashed its teeth in with the hammer that I’d tucked down my belt. I turned its head to the side afterwards and poured water into its mouth from a bottle in yet another pocket. Bits of tooth and gums and blood and god knows what else washed out. The thing didn’t choke to death, which was the reason for the water bottle in the first place. I pulled off some of the duct tape I’d grabbed earlier and taped its mouth shut, several layers thick, then placed the face shield carefully over its face, to be triply sure that it wouldn’t be able to bite me or any of the others with any remaining bits of teeth. Perhaps it was overkill, but I hadn’t stayed alive this long without good reason. I didn’t take chances if I didn’t have to. (People might look at me later as if I was a monster, and tell me that there are things you just don’t do, and all that. Like smashing defenceless people’s teeth in. But my response would always be the same. As long as I got to have a ‘later’ I didn’t really care whether people approved of my methods or not.) I hoped silently that Lattimer had made it away from the pack that were following him. He was all right, for a peeler.

 

I was a slog, dragging the zombie behind me. But it had to be done. My muscles were screaming in protest. But I, at least, was alive. The poor sod that I was dragging behind me was fucked, whether this cure worked or not. If it did, he had a life of false teeth and no limbs to look forward to. If there’d been a more humane way to do it, I would have. But with the resources of the morgue, this was the safest way.

 

I carried him down the stairs, keeping his face as far away from as I could. He was still heavy, even as just a struggling torso. And even with the tourniquets pulled as tight as I could get them, he was bleeding, a lot. I tapped on the metal doors of the morgue, using the Morse code for Princess. I knew Helena would get a kick out of the code I’d worked out with Dr Jinks.

 

She was scowling at me as I dragged my arse – and the zombie’s – in to the morgue. Or rather, she was trying to. It morphed rather quickly into a look of surprise and shock. I suppose I looked a picture – I’d just done some major surgery on the poor fella and I’m pretty sure I was splattered with all sorts. I called for Dr Calder, who came hurrying out of her small lab. I heard noises behind me as Jinks and Helena started replacing the barricade behind me.

 

“He’s bleeding a lot, Doc. I don’t know if they need blood or not to stay alive, but I think you’d better patch him up before we lose him. I’d prefer not to go out to get another one.” She nodded, pointing me to the morgue table I’d recently vacated. I lifted our zombie on to the slab with a grunt and went across to the table on the other side of the room, sitting myself down with a sigh. I stripped off the gloves and the plastic faceplate, and then went to work on the rest of my equipment. I shed guns, knives, hammer and axe quickly, letting them drop where they would, and as I went to take off the bulletproof vest I found soft hands already working on the straps.

 

“Hey,” I breathed, softly. I was knackered, suddenly. I suppose it was the adrenaline deserting me. She undid the straps at either side of my waist and I lifted my arms up for her to take the blood-crusted vest off over my head. I slumped forward, leaning my forehead on the table in front of me. She put her hands on my shoulders, leaning over me, and said, “You’re very brave, darling,” in my ear. I shivered a bit. Her breath was warm. But I wasn’t brave. Chopping some poor lad to bits for something that was beyond his control didn’t make me brave, it just made me cold. I turned my head a little bit and muttered something to that effect.

 

She huffed a little, still close to my ear. It was a bit of a weird position. She was leaning over me as I leaned on the table, and I had my head turned a bit, almost as if I was turning to kiss her. I tried to head that thought off, but her whispering in my ear did not help. All the little hairs at the back of my neck were standing on end.

 

“You are selling yourself short, Myka. You might have saved us all, and you put yourself at risk to do so.”

 

I wanted her to whisper in my ear in very different circumstances. I wanted her to say filthy things to me. I tried to settle my suddenly raging libido. This was a side effect, sometimes, of violence. I had seen it, experienced it, before. Adrenaline, maybe, or some sort of survival instinct. I just suddenly knew that there was blood in places where blood had not been a moment before. Or not as much of it, at any rate. I fought to slow my suddenly racing heart, and swallowed to wet my dry mouth. Her body was almost flush against my back. I took a deep breath. I started to wish I’d become a nun, like I’d considered, when I first realised I was into women. I would have been in a convent by now, praying or singing hymns with Whoopi Goldberg, and definitely not thinking about shagging a hot stranger furiously in a morgue while covered with zombie blood and fragments of teeth.

 

She moved off me, suddenly, as Dr Jinks came back in to the room from the small lab. I turned in my chair and he gave me an amused look. I was probably beaming like Rudolph’s nose on Christmas Eve. The direction my thoughts were going in, I’m surprised I wasn’t on fire. I looked away from his knowing gaze and cheeky grin and tried to forget how she felt against me. I could vividly imagine other circumstances in which we might get in that position. Fuck. I had a word with myself, very pointedly not looking in Helena’s direction.

 

Steve went over to assist Dr Calder with strapping Mr Torso to the morgue table and attaching a variety of medical torture devices to him. They must have given him something to calm him down, because he stopped flinging himself from side to side. He wasn’t hissing any more, but I’m not sure if you can hiss without teeth. Can you? I suddenly felt nauseated and I tried not to look at him. I was sick and tired of doing brutal things. I thought I was done with all that after Sam. I turned around, put my head back on the table for a moment, and took a deep breath. I felt her sit next to me, and she slid her hand underneath my arm to clasp on to my hand. I breathed in the scent of her and something in me relaxed again. Something else very much did _not_ relax, but I once again ignored my raging libido and tried to think about boring stuff until my blood pressure dropped a notch. I still breathed deeply, though.

 

“Are you okay?” she breathed, quietly.

 

“I’m fine,” I said flatly, not lifting up my head.

 

“You don’t seem fine. I know that doing that must have been hard for you.” Her tone was so fucking tender, I could barely stand it. If she knew what I was, what I was capable of? God, she’d hate me. I choked, suddenly, on the sob that was rising in my throat. Yet again I was losing my composure in front of her. It was what you might call a tad disconcerting.

 

I stood up, suddenly, and gently disentangled her hand from mine before marching off through the small door to the garage, trying to get away from all of it, this insane situation and away from her. She was too good, too caring, too nice, and I didn’t deserve any of it.

 

I hid myself in a corner behind one of the Land Rovers, hoping she wouldn’t follow. I sat on the floor, holding my knees to my chest. It was quiet for a few minutes and I was able to calm myself a little, to try and push away the crush of guilt. But then there was a faint whisper of air and I turned away, saying, “I don’t…” at the same time as Chief Superintendent Frederic spoke.

 

“Miss Bering. Miss Wells is concerned that you might be traumatised by what you did to retrieve the test subject.”

 

Fucking test subject? That was one of her men! I shrugged it off, very much not wanting to talk about this with her in particular.

 

“You did what I asked, Myka, and no more. I am sorry that you had to do it, but no-one else could.” She sat down next to me on the oily, damp floor, crossing her legs over and adjusting her skirt carefully.

 

“You did what you had to. I know your history, Miss Bering, and I know what happened with Sam Martino and Mr MacPherson. I would have put you away if I had proof, because that is my job, but I believe strongly that you only did what you had to, what you were pushed into. And since then, it has been my understanding that you are no longer a member of any…less than legal organisations, shall we say?”

 

I looked at her in astonishment.

 

“I know you think you are a monster, Miss Bering. But you are not. I have been assured of that by people that I trust. Otherwise I would not have asked for your help today. Consider that, if you will. And perhaps you should stop running away from Miss Wells. I think she needs a friend as much as you do.”

 

I was still sitting there with my mouth open. I’d never, ever expected to hear anything remotely approaching that kind of speech from Chief Superintendent Frederic. She smoothed her skirt again and got to her feet and left the room before I could even register that she was moving. 


	6. Second time lucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Banging! Flashbacks! More zombies, a few bites, and a couple of our intrepid heroes are zombified? Zombificated? Become zombies. 
> 
> (There is a vague description of an attempted sexual assault in this chapter, which I mention as a trigger warning.)

* * *

I sat there, confused and sad and tired, for a while. They didn’t need my help, not unless someone needed shooting. I felt a bit like a child as I sat there, as if I was huffing over nothing. But I was trying to take in what Frederic had said. I had always considered what happened with Sam and MacPherson to be my fault, even though Arthur had repeatedly said it wasn’t. I was pushed into a corner that I couldn’t get out of, he said, and I did what I had to. Sam was dead no matter what I did, and MacPherson needed killing. I agreed with him on that score, to be fair, but I had still put a gun to the head of my first love and pulled the trigger. Some things are inexcusable.

 

Helena came in a while after Chief Superintendent Frederic had left, and sat silently next to me.

 

“I’m sorry,” I said, sadly.

 

“For what?” She cocked her eyebrow at me.

 

“For running off on you like that. You were being nice. I think I’ve forgotten how normal people behave, I’m sorry.”

 

She laughed. It was a small laugh, but it was bright and beautiful and it lifted my heart to hear it. I thought it might be my new favourite sound.

 

“Normal people are boring. You are definitely not boring.”

 

“I’ll give you that one, sweetheart. I’m definitely not boring.”

 

We sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, shoulders not quite touching. She turned to me then, and she had a cloth in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. She wet the cloth and used it to wipe my face and neck gently. I was pretty much melting at every small touch of her hands, and my body was telling me to move, to wrap myself around her, to take and be taken. But then Dr Jinks burst in, saying there was someone or something at the door. I got to my feet quickly but regretfully and followed him back in to the main morgue. Helena followed on my heels.

 

“Meeka? She-Ra? It’s the Terminator. Are yous in there?”

 

“What the hell is he saying? Is it one of those things? I didn’t think they could talk,” Jinks said, looking at me in bewilderment. I laughed, shaking my head.

 

“That’s Lattimer. He’s one of the cops who works here. He helped me catch your man over there,” I said, gesturing towards the zombie with a thumb.

 

“All right, Lattimer, I’m letting you in. Make sure there’s none of them fuckers after you, okay?” I yelled through the door.

 

“No problem Meeka,” came the voice from the other side of the door. For fuck’s sake, Meeka? How did he get that pronunciation from what I said? Seriously? Fucking deaf eejit. I considered not letting him in just for that, but I thought if he got ate I might feel bad later. I nodded to Steve, who looked a bit doubtful, but we cleared away the barricade quick enough, and a very tired looking Peter Lattimer came through the double doors. We started replacing our barriers, and it all seemed to be going well for a minute, until a bloody arm snaked in between the doors and grabbed Steve round the neck, dragging him out over the stacked equipment before he could get away. I grabbed one of the knives and a handgun quickly from the table next to the door and flung myself out, screaming at Pete to block the doors behind me. Outside the door there were five of them – one of them whose teeth were buried in Steve’s shoulder, clamping down. I very quickly put the muzzle of the handgun to its forehead and fired, hoping that Steve’s hearing would be left intact afterwards. I pushed Steve behind me, then I spun to the nearest zombie, firing again and putting a neat hole in its forehead. A hand grabbed at my face, catching the edge of my lip, and I slashed at it with the knife, nearly severing it at the wrist (and incidentally nearly jabbing my own eye out). I twisted my body a little to face the last three of them, one of whom was zeroing in on Steve behind me, trying to move past me. I shot that one first. One of the others got too close then and I lost my knife in its eye, but I must have stabbed hard enough to damage its brain and it dropped to the floor, thankfully. Then it was just me and the last one – the one whose hand I’d already damaged. I had just enough room to get the handgun up and aim enough to shoot it in the neck, which knocked it off balance so I could shoot it again, in the head this time. I rocked on my feet a little and shook my head before finding the one I’d stabbed in the eye, which was still twitching a bit, and aiming carefully at its head. The echoes of the last shot reverberated around in the small area. I took a deep breath and then turned to see if Steve was alive, dead, or in between. He was bleeding profusely from the bite in his shoulder but he was still him, for now.

 

I knocked on the morgue door, shouting for them to let me in, Steve needed treatment.

 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Miss Bering?” Frederic’s voice, of course.

 

“I didn’t come out here so I could just let him die. Now either let me in or throw me out some tourniquets and tape and I’ll immobilise him.”

 

She took the second option, or rather she got Pete to. I didn’t blame her, not really. She had to think of everyone. Pete opened the door slightly, covering me and Steve with a handgun, wearing an apologetic grimace on his face as he threw out the items I’d asked for. I taped up Steve’s mouth securely first of all, murmuring to him the whole time that I was going to make sure he was all right, and he could trust me. He nodded, pretty calm for someone who was more than likely about to turn into a zombie. I tied several tourniquets around his hands and then his feet. His eyes started to change colour then and a noise that might have been an attempt at a hiss came from his mouth. I stepped back, showing Pete what I’d done, and he nodded, turning to confirm to Frederic that Steve was secure. She gave him permission and he came out to help me drag Steve inside. I left the struggling man on the floor for a few minutes while Pete and I rebuilt the barricade, ensuring that we secured the door handles with our metal bars first to avoid any sneaky zombie arms getting through. After it was as secure as it was getting, Pete and I lifted Steve on to the spare morgue table, strapping him down carefully. He was very strong but I’d immobilised him pretty effectively. When I stepped back, I had to admit that he still looked terrifying. The eyes were scary as fuck to look at. I turned around to find everyone watching me and Pete. They were as far away from us as they could get.

 

“Come on, yousens. Dr Calder, you need to sedate him or something. This isn’t his fault. And that shoulder needs dressing.”

 

She nodded her head and went into her lab to grab something to knock him out. I took the opportunity to introduce Pete to everyone, and I corrected him pointedly on how to say my name. (I know my priorities.) He looked a bit sheepish. I let him off seeing as he’d probably been running since I saw him last. His eyes lit up when he got a proper look at Helena, and he went over and shook her hand, acting all charming. I resisted the urge to rip his eyeballs out. You know, I read a study once about how, when people are exposed to violence all the time, it becomes a more natural response to matters that probably _shouldn’t_ be dealt with using violence. (The academics who wrote the study probably phrased it slightly more elegantly. But you get the idea.) This might have been one of those times; I wasn’t sure. But I was pretty sure that if Pete Lattimer touched Helena, I might go all zombie on his ass.

 

Helena caught the look on my face and for some unfathomable reason, smiled at me. She was practically glowing. I moved to her, without any conscious thought at all, walking straight past Pete. She put her arms around me, and whispered in my ear.

 

“I’m all yours, Myka Bering.”

 

Pete Lattimer, bless him, looked from me to Helena to Chief Superintendent Frederic, who was giving me the hairy eyeball again, and moved back, hands held up in surrender. But I ignored the lot of them. I only had eyes for one person, and she wasn’t a too-muscly police officer, or a too-glary Chief Superintendent. I had eyes only for Helena Wells, the woman who was looking at me like I was someone worth looking at, like I was worthy of her, like I could mean something, be something other than the empty killer that I saw when I looked in the mirror. She went to the table and came back with a cloth and a bottle of water, and took my hand, pulling me along behind her.

 

We walked through the door to the garage and she closed the door firmly behind us, pulling me into the back of one of the army Land Rovers before locking that door behind us. She wiped my face and neck, my hands, cleaning the last vestiges of violence from my skin. I don’t know what she did to me, that night. Whenever I’m intimate with someone, I have a problem letting go of my control – probably something to do with my past and PTSD and other acronyms. With her, though, it was different. So different that I didn’t recognise myself. I know that I have never, not once before, been with someone who made me feel what she made me feel. I have never in my life been in someone’s arms making the sounds I made that night. And I would like to think that she, too, had never made those sounds, the sounds I have come to crave, for anyone else. I know that, with her spread out beneath me, her hair fanned out on the floor of the jeep like a dark halo, I felt like I was more than a dark and empty waste of the space I occupied. I felt like I was worth something, finally, to someone. She made me feel that. When she kissed my scarred knee. When her head was thrown back, her throat exposed to my teeth and tongue, her eyes rolled back in her head, she made me feel that I could be worth more than the nothing I was.

 

***

_I was dazed. I didn’t know how we’d even got here. First of all I find out that Sam, my Sam, was an informer. Then I got questioned by some of the higher ups, pistol whipped and beaten, shot in one knee. They finally believed me when I said that I hadn’t known about it, and Arthur backed me up – that’s the only reason they stopped the beating and didn’t put a couple of rounds in the back of my head. The pain was excruciating. I could feel bone scraping on bone every time I moved, and I screamed more than once, despite trying to hold it in._

_MacPherson was their ‘Questioner,’ the one who everyone was frightened of.  He was a creepy fucker, with a face like a melted welly. He enjoyed his job way too much. He got the nod from the boss, whoever the guy was, (he was wearing a balaclava) and I was dragged by two anonymous men into a separate room where a man was tied up, on his knees, with a bag over his head. MacPherson pulled off the bag, exposing a bloody face topped with messy blond hair. Sam, my boyfriend, the one who had talked me into this mess in the first place, the one who I’d given my virginity and my trust to. He’d been informing to the peelers the whole time. And now he was going to get killed._

_I didn’t expect MacPherson to put the gun in my hand. I said no, backing away as best as I could despite my shattered leg and what I suspected were broken ribs on both sides. But then I heard the ‘snick’ of a gun being cocked, and the pressure of the barrel on the back of my own head._

_“They want you to prove it, prove you’re not an informer. Two rounds to the back of the head. You can do it, you’re one of the coldest fuckers they’ve seen in a long time.”_

_Tears were streaming down my face. I felt betrayed – Sam had got me into this with him, I hadn’t asked for this. But now it was kill or be killed. Sam turned to me, nodded._

_“Do it. They’re going to kill me either way; if you don’t do it they’ll just kill you too. I’m sorry, Myka.”_

_I thought for a moment, and then nodded, my eyes on his. He nodded again and turned his head forward. I pulled the trigger twice. A double-tap. Sam’s body toppled to the floor limply. I suppressed a scream, holding myself together with only my own survival instinct. Someone took the gun from my limp fingers, and I stood there dumbly. And that was when MacPherson decided he wanted something I didn’t want to give. Since Sam was gone, I would need a man, he said. The predictability of it would have made me sigh, on any other day. Base desires, sex and violence, mixed together in the minds of small men. I could hear a ruckus outside the door, and I could tell even through this fog in my brain, that the men who had carried me in here, who’d held a gun to my head, they were outside now, trying to stop someone else from coming in. It was just me and MacPherson, and Sam’s corpse. (Arthur told me later that he’d done this before. Any woman that came through the ranks was fair game if they got themselves in trouble; MacPherson did everything he could to take advantage.) MacPherson kicked my good knee, knocking me down, but I scrambled back up, backing away from him, the pain in my knee keeping me focused enough to resist. He advanced on me and pinned me to the wall, kicking my ruined knee and making me scream hoarsely. Unfortunately, that just made him happier. I couldn’t believe this was happening, this much horror in such a short space of time. Sam was dead, his hair bright and blond and smeared with blood, not three feet away. MacPherson was running his hand down my face, telling me in nauseating detail what he wanted. I hesitated, still, even though I knew what he was about to do. Because this man was the IRA’s go-to torturer. There was no guarantee they’d let me live if I threatened him. But as he started to move his hands downward, I looked at him with dead eyes. I’m not sure I honestly cared, right then, if I lived or died._

_“Stop. Now.”_

_He looked at me, his rotten breath nearly making me gag as he said, “Why, what are you going to do? Try and fight me? With my boys outside, and the bosses in the next room? You can hardly even stand up, you stupid wee bitch.”_

_I swallowed, trying not to throw up._

_“If I have to.”_

_He didn’t believe me, clearly, because he tried to kiss me. I turned my head and gave him one more chance._

_“I’ll do it, Jimmy. Don’t make me.”_

_He grinned at me, the fucker._

_“They’ll kill you.”_

_“I’ll take my chances.”_

_He looked a bit frightened for a second at my expression, but then regained his confidence and started moving his hands again. I don’t know exactly what I did to make him move away, but he fell back with a confused look on his face and then started to laugh, advancing on me again. I hit him hard, the way I’d been taught. Two short, sharp movements and a second later he hit the floor. A crushed larynx and his own nasal bone driven into his brain made sure he would never get up again._

_The first person through the door was Arthur. He took in the scene, and I took in the sight of him, his gun in his hand and several of his own fellas there, holding back MacPherson’s guys. He half-carried me to his car, to the hospital, where I was questioned by the police about the how I’d sustained a gunshot wound, and a day or two later, by Chief Superintendent Frederic, about Sam’s death and Mac Pherson’s death, but they didn’t have enough evidence to tie me to either, after the fire that had been set to destroy the evidence. After a few days I got to go home. But after that, I was out. Arthur told them and they let me go. They wanted female recruits and if it got out, what had happened, women wouldn’t sign up. I was out, but when it was dark I could still feel his hand around my throat and I could smell his rancid breath in my face, the metallic tang of Sam’s blood hanging in the air._

***

“Fuck!” I got to my feet, gasping for breath, surrounded by darkness, not knowing where the hell I was.

 

“Myka?” Helena’s voice was sleepy, concerned. I could barely see her in the dark interior of the Land Rover.

 

I couldn’t speak, I just stood there, stark bollock naked, gasping for breath and trying not to cry. She stood, also naked as a jaybird. She put her arms around my neck loosely and looked at me with those brown eyes, full of something I hadn’t seen in such a long time – caring, compassion? Call it whatever you like, but I sobbed, sobbed like a little child. Sobbed like I hadn’t done since I was a wee girl and my mummy was alive. She held me close, murmuring soothing words, her hand in my hair, fingers rubbing at the back of my skull soothingly. I don’t know how long I sobbed for. It could have been hours. I was so exhausted by the end of it that I sank down to my knees, and she came with me, drew me back down to the floor, to the bed of clothes we had slept on. She pulled the rough blanket over us both. The soldiers kept them as part of their kit in the Land Rovers, in case someone was in shock (or apparently in case some random women needed a shag). I applauded their preparedness, in any case.

 

I rested my head on her shoulder. Her hand was in my hair, the other wiping tears from my face and then stroking my shoulder.

 

“You’re safe, Myka. You’re ok.”

 

I looked at her like she was mad. She chuckled.

 

“Relatively speaking, anyway.” She kissed me. After the dream I’d had, sex was the furthest thing from my mind. But she kissed me tenderly and lovingly, and I kissed her back, trying to express my appreciation against her lips for the way she had cared for me, held me after my nightmare.

 

I fell asleep for a while, lying there with her arms around me, her soothing me with her soft kisses. I can’t tell you how unheard of it is for me to fall asleep in the company of another person, let alone in their arms. But she just made me feel that safe.

 

We were awoken by a gentle knock at the back door of the vehicle. It was Frederic. She spoke through the closed door.

 

“Ladies? We think we have the antivirus. Could you please come through? When you’re ready?”

 

“We’ll be there shortly,” I said. I heard her heels clacking away. She’d probably come in herself for the sake of embarrassing me. I wasn’t embarrassed. I was wondering how I got to be so lucky, that this beautiful, amazing woman would choose me, choose someone who’d done the things I have.

 

I turned my head to look up at her. She smiled at me.

 

“Good morning, sunshine.”

 

“You’ve been waiting to say that, haven’t you?”

 

She laughed. I could feel her chest vibrating against my cheek. I thought I might love her. After a day, or two days? I’d lost count. That was stupid, right?

 

She lifted my chin with a finger and kissed me. She was soft and sweet and I didn’t deserve it, but I selfishly wanted her anyway, and I kissed her back, hard and fierce. We got a bit carried away, but I remembered myself enough that I pulled away, smiling ever so slightly at the frustrated look on her face.

 

“Come on, princess,” I said, running a fingernail down her bare side. She was ticklish and it made her jump, as I’d intended. I sat up, pulling my hair back and tying it out of my face with a hair elastic I had round my wrist. I started to get dressed as she carried on protesting.

 

“Don’t you want to find out if the antidote worked? If it doesn’t, I might have to go out there and kidnap more zombies.”

 

Her face dropped. I felt bad.

 

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m sure it’ll work.” I wasn’t sure, not even a little bit. I had no idea whether Dr Calder was able to concoct a workable antidote in a morgue in the middle of West Belfast. I had no idea if she was competent, whether she had the supplies, whether it was even possible. I’m sure Helena knew that, but I tried to be reassuring anyway. I kissed her again and finished dressing. She was dressed too. I was a bit unhappy about that. She was much better looking naked. She laughed at me when she caught me sticking my bottom lip out like a two year old in a huff. I stuck my tongue out at her.

 

We emerged from the back of the Land Rover into a new day. Light was creeping through the gap under the garage doors. I wondered if any of us would still be alive to see the day end.

 

We came through the door into a room full of eyes – one set glaring, one set amused, one set wide. You can probably make a guess on who owned which pair. Peter Lattimer was giving me the wide eyes and mouthing something unrepeatable, Dr Calder was grinning knowingly, and Chief Superintendent Frederic was once again giving me the hairy eyeball of doom. I grinned at her, knowing how much it annoyed her. She sniffed. I couldn’t give a shite about what any of them thought. All I cared about was that _she_ was still holding my hand, she still wanted to be near me. Even if it was only for today, for now.

 

I raised an eyebrow at Frederic, who gestured towards the morgue table. Helena and I walked through hand in hand, and as we rounded the corner, Dr Calder pushed the plunger on a needle that went into an IV that in turn, went into Torso Mc Toothless. (You might think me heartless, but when your whole life is a series of unfortunate events, if you’ll pardon the stolen phrase, you find the humour in the blackest of things. And right then, what I’d done to poor Torso was the blackest of events in my life. At least the others I’d killed had died cleanly.)

 

It took a few moments, but as we watched, his eyes started changing colour, the sclera turning from grey to white, and the irises returning to normal, which for this poor fella was hazel. Unfortunately, he then started foaming at the mouth and within a few more seconds he was dead. Dr Calder’s shoulders dropped. And then mine did too.

 

“We thought that might happen,” said Chief Superintendent Frederic, from behind me.

 

“Does that mean I have to go again?” It was a question, but not really. We both knew the answer. I turned to face her.

 

“Well, we could try the next batch on Dr Jinks,” she said, her tone bland.

 

I shook my head vehemently. He was only getting a cure if we knew it worked. Otherwise I’d saved him for nothing.

 

“Then, yes, I’m afraid it does. We need to find a cure for this before it spreads, Myka. You know that.” She looked apologetic.

 

“What is the likelihood that you will get this right, that Myka is not just risking her life for nothing?” It was Helena’s voice, and she was angry.

 

Dr Calder’s voice broke in to the awkward silence that followed Helena’s question.

 

“I know why he died. It was a chance I had to take. But I know why, and I know how to fix it – if I can test it on another subject.”

 

“And will that be all?” I asked quietly. “Just one, or will you need more?”

 

“Just one. If this doesn’t work, I have no other ideas, Miss Bering.” Dr Calder’s expression was certain. I hoped she knew what she was talking about.

 

I started to get ready, grabbing up the discarded bits and pieces that I’d used for armour the day before. No-one had gone near the blood-painted bullet-proof vest or jacket. I didn’t blame them.

 

“I’m coming too.” It was Lattimer.

 

I turned, not entirely surprised.

 

“Are you sure?”

 

He nodded, his chest puffed out and his head turned slightly as if he was posing with a cape blowing out behind him and an S on his chest. I laughed. He laughed too. My initial impression of him was right – he was an eejit. He began to grab the same bits and pieces I had the day before, apart from the leather jacket. Steve did have one, but Pete was much more muscly and it wouldn’t go past those biceps. I laughed at him when he tried.

 

Helena was glaring at me. I lifted an eyebrow in inquiry. She pulled me over into a corner, near where our first ‘subject’ still lay.

 

“You wouldn’t take me with you, but you will take him? Why?” She practically hissed at me. I made a great show of wiping the spit from my face. She glared even harder.

 

“He can handle himself, Helena. He is a police officer, he has weapons training. And if he gets bitten by a zombie, I will be sad. But if that happens, I’ll bring him back here if I can, and if I can’t, I won’t hesitate to shoot him, and he won’t hesitate to shoot me.”

 

Her face softened a little.

 

“And you would hesitate, if it were me?”

 

I gave her a look. It was probably the most open, most honest look I’ve given anyone in years. She stared for a moment, then tears spilled over her eyelashes. I didn’t have to say anything else. She nodded, and we went back to the others. I finished getting all my bits in order and slung the axe through the straps of the bulletproof vest. Lattimer had two handguns and the shotgun, and I’d stuck to the SA80 and a pair of handguns.  He grinned at me, and I caught his enthusiasm. He was daft, but there was something endearing about him. Even if he was a Protestant. My granny called Protestants ‘dirty orange bastards,’ with that particular inflection of her voice that meant she might as well have been talking about Satan himself. She saved that voice for Protestants, the Queen, the English, and soldiers. And Ian Paisley. It’s sad, looking back, but it had always amused me, that voice, when I was a child. Until it wasn’t funny anymore, when the dirty orange bastards had blown my family to kingdom come. I still didn’t hate them, though. Just the ones that were doing the murdering. But I couldn’t very well hate them now, when I was just as bad, could I?

 

We made our way to the barricaded door and started to move things out of the way. I was getting very tired of dismantling and rebuilding this little barricade, but I knew I would appreciate it if the zombies came calling again.

 

She drew me away before we pulled out those last bits, the metal jammed through the pull handles.

 

“Be careful, Myka,” she breathed, looking at me with those big brown eyes and making my heart stop for a second. She kissed me and I kissed her back, fell into her like she was the only thing holding my head above water. She was, I suppose, in a way. Because despite everything that was going on around us, I felt more alive than I had felt in years. Since she had sauntered into my life.

 

I broke away and walked out the door without looking back. I didn’t want to leave and if I didn’t go now, I wasn’t going. Lattimer followed me, not saying a word. I respected him for that. Either he was smart enough to know that I’d deck him if he made fun, or he was insightful enough to realise that she meant something to me. Either way, it made him brighter than I would have given him credit for.

 

The small hallway outside the morgue was painted in blood and gore, the bodies of the zombies still where they’d fallen. They’d probably followed the trail of blood from Torso #1. I hoped no more would find the morgue while Pete and I were gone.

 

When we got to the top of the stairs and reached the main corridor, I went in the same direction as last time, but Lattimer pulled me back.

 

“We should try near the canteen. We might be able to get some food too, I’m starving.”

 

I nodded. I was suddenly starving too. I hadn’t thought about food, not really, since whenever the hell it was that Helena and I had eaten that omelette – it could have been years ago. And I hadn’t felt hungry since. Probably adrenaline and whatever else your body produces when you’re fucking terrified.

 

We moved towards the cafeteria cautiously, weapons out. I was pleased to see that Lattimer was professional and well-trained with his shotgun. In another way, I wasn’t pleased at all, because he was helping the fuckers that were occupying my country, and any training he had was due to that. But since this zombie thing, none of that seemed very important.

 

We reached the canteen without any incidents, or seeing any zombies. But the doors were locked. We looked at each other, me and Pete, thinking of when I’d found him behind locked doors. I knocked quietly on the door, and there was no answer. I tried again – nothing.

 

“Can you kick that in, Lattimer?” I asked.

 

“I dunno, but I can try.”

 

He was very beefy, I was pretty sure he could. But the doors must have been reinforced, because he couldn’t, and then he started whinging about how much his foot hurt. Very quietly, thank God.

 

“Is it worth the risk to shoot out the lock?” I asked him, considering.

 

“I dunno, Wonder Woman. Maybe.”

 

“We could do with the food, at least, couldn’t we?”

 

He scratched his head, thinking about it.

 

“There is some food downstairs, just snacks, but not enough for all of us for any length of time.”

 

I hadn’t noticed. I really hadn’t been hungry, not even a little bit. I was surprised I hadn’t passed out.

 

“All right then, let’s do it.”

 

I pulled one of the handguns out and pushed the muzzle hard against the lock, and blew it out. It was ridiculously loud. Pete and I shared a look of concern, then shrugged in unison. We couldn’t do anything about it, so if they were coming, we’d deal with it when they did. Plus we needed one of the poor bastards.

 

We pushed the doors open, only to find that there was a barricade of sorts on the other side. We set our shoulders and pushed it all out of the way slowly. It wasn’t too heavy; just tables and chairs and some sort of trolley thing they must have used for carrying soups and things.

 

There was no-one in sight, which was not surprising because one could only assume that anyone in here had barricaded themselves in to hide from the zombies and they’d now be hiding from us.

 

“Hello,” I called, quietly. “We’re not zombies. Is there anybody in here?”

 

“Yeah,” Pete said, “We’re definitely not zombies. No flesh eating here.”

 

I glowered at him.

 

“Very reassuring, Lattimer.”

 

No-one appeared, but I did hear a quiet shuffling noise from behind the counter. Pete heard it too, and made some sort of unintelligible sign language at me.

 

“What the fuck does that mean?” I whispered at him.

 

“What do you mean, what does it mean? That means I’ll go head on, you flank, and we’ll get them in a pincer manoeuvre.”

 

“Pincer fucking manoeuvre? What have you been reading? Andy fucking McNab? This is West Belfast, for fuck’s sake.” I shot him a look of pure disgust, and marched over to the counter, sticking my head over to see who was behind there.

 

There was a small teenage girl hiding behind the counter. She had red hair with a green stripe near the front and she looked fucking terrified.

 

“Hiya love, I’m Myka. And honest to God, we’re not zombies. Are you all right?”

 

She was jammed up against the cabinets, her eyes wide and scared. At my matter-of-fact tone, though, she relaxed.

 

“Are you sure you’re not?” It came out as a bit of a squeak, but to be honest, I’d have been squeaking in her position. She was Irish too, which was nice, because every fucker else in this place except Pete seemed to be English or American. I was starting to think I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone. (No, fuck that. I _was_ in an episode of the Twilight Zone.)

 

“Aye, love. We’re definitely not zombies. We’re trying to catch one, though.”

 

She stood up, slowly, taking in our odd apparel and weapons sceptically.

 

“You’re going to grab one of them things, dressed like that?”

 

I gave her an offended look.

 

“I’ll have you know I’ve already picked up one of those things on my own, dressed exactly like this, young lady, so mind your manners, all right?”

 

She looked at me in awe. That was fine, awe I could deal with. Cheeky wee fuckers, I couldn’t stand. But she seemed all right and she was very young so I let her off.

 

“All right then love, let’s get you out of here and safe in the morgue.”

 

“The morgue?” The poor wee thing went white, and started giving me the side-eye and inching back towards her hiding place.

 

“Calm down, chicken.” (That’s what my daddy used to call me when I was a wee kid.) “Chief Superintendent Frederic and two doctors are down there, along with another survivor. We went down there because it’s got heavy doors. We thought we might be able to get out using the Land Rovers because they’re armoured, but there were no keys – the soldiers must still have them.”

 

“Oh.” She relaxed, looking a bit shamefaced.

 

“Don’t worry, love, we’ll get you safe. We better get some food too, though, while we’re here. Pete?”

 

Lattimer was already in the stockroom, filling up a couple of plastic bags he’d rustled up. (See what I did there?) I went behind the counter and grabbed a couple of the smaller pans from the kitchen. I didn’t know if Dr Calder would have a Bunsen burner or something in the morgue, but you never know. If not, we might be able to build a small fire somehow. Pete was filling his bags full of cans and bread and milk and bottles of water. I nodded approvingly. He seemed really stupid at first, Lattimer, but he was proving to be very sensible.

 

I handed the girl a couple of pans and a small bag of food that Lattimer passed to me.

 

“You two can take these back downstairs and I’ll see about finding one of those loonies for the doctor.”

 

Pete eyed me nervously.

 

“Are you sure, Sarah Connor?”

 

“Aye, I’ll be grand. Don’t you worry. Just make sure the wee one’s safe,” I said, gesticulating at red-hair.

 

I went with them as far as the split in the corridor that led to the rest of the barracks, they went left, after wishing me luck, and I went right. It took a while to find any of the zombies, but when I did, there were about fifty all together in a large room they must have used for big briefings or maybe press conferences or something. They were all huddled together, just standing. They looked like they were shut down, maybe. It was weird. I tried to think of a way to get one of them away from the rest, when I heard the hissing behind me a second too late. I very distinctly felt teeth bear down on my upper arm, then a gush of blood. I choked back a scream of pain to avoid alerting the rest of them.

 

I still had the rifle in my hand, and I had the presence of mind to use the butt to hit the fucker in the face – it was an awkward angle, but it worked enough that it let go and fell back. I spun around as quietly as I could and kicked it in the face. It was a woman, this one, and that made it even harder. She would have been pretty if it wasn’t for those eyes. Grey and black, just like mine were going to be soon.

 

I hit her with the rifle butt again, hard as I could, and she fell. As soon as she had fallen I put my foot on her throat, holding her down. I was about to follow the same process I’d undertaken the last time, with the chopping and the smashing, when I realised that there was no point. I’d already been bitten. I just had to immobilise her and make sure there was no way for her to bite anyone else. It  was still extremely difficult, however, because she was a wriggler. Matters were further complicated by the fact that there was a roomful of zombies about 4 feet away. I’d been standing by the door, peering round it, when she – it – had bitten me. I didn’t know how long I had until I turned, so I wrapped her mouth securely with duct tape, getting another bite on my lower arm for my trouble. I put the spare face guard over her, pulled her arms behind her and wrapped her up in tourniquets and duct tape, and then tied her legs together the same way. I then started dragging her by the collar of her shirt. She must have been an administrator - or maybe some sort of detective? I didn’t really know how the police ranks worked. But it didn’t matter what she was, bless her, because now she was going to be an experiment. If I could stay human long enough to get her to the doctor.

 

The dragging was hard work, but I put my back into it because I wanted to get to the morgue before I went full on zombie. Maybe I would get to see her – Helena – once more before Pete put a bullet in my brain-pan. I decided to take the lift, reasoning that it didn’t really matter now if I made noise – we either had this cure, or we were all dead one way or another. I listened to the lift music – it was Mozart – as I felt my stomach lurch as it always did in a lift. It was so ludicrous that I couldn’t even laugh. I was about to turn into a zombie, and I was heading to the morgue where I’d identified my baby sister’s body, and then if I could even speak I was going to ask my new friend Pete to shoot me in the head. And here I was, listening to Eine kleine Nachtmusik as performed on the pan pipes. Maybe it was a fitting end to my life, since it had never been an entirely sane existence.

 

The lift doors pinged open and I dragged the zombie woman the last few feet to the metal doors.

 

“Pete,” I yelled. “I haven’t time to knock out a code. I got bit. I need you to come out and take the zombie. And you need to put me down.”

 

There was a pause.

 

“All right, She-Ra, I’m coming.” There were some metallic noises and shuffling, and I started to notice that my vision was greying out. I let go of the zombie, and sat on the floor, using one of the tourniquets to tie my feet together, and, with some difficulty, wrapping another round my joined wrists, which I pulled tight with my teeth. If Pete got here too late, at least it would take me a minute to get to my feet. They weren’t that bright, the zombies, so I didn’t think my brain would know why my hands and feet weren’t working. Then I relaxed and resigned myself to my fate.

 

Pete’s concerned face was the last thing I saw before the world went dark. I wished I’d been able to see Helena, just once more. But at least she wouldn’t have to see me like that.


	7. Fallout and firearms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hospital. Less zombies. More banging. And a night-time attack…

I’ve never been unconscious for a long time. I had a short-ish operation when I got shot in the knee, but that was only a couple of hours. And I’ve obviously slept, like most people, but I’ve no experience with waking up with days or weeks having passed. Until this time, that is. I woke up slowly, over a number of days, if Dr Calder is to be believed. I remember wee things, like smells – that hospital smell, like cleaning fluid and warmed up vomit. Then flashes of sound.

 

“Is she moving? Are her eyes moving?”

 

“Shut up Pete, you’re just annoying everybody. She’ll wake up when she wakes up.”

 

That seemed profound to me for some reason. She’ll wake up when she wakes up. I drifted off again, thinking of brown eyes and a cocky smirk.

 

Next it was the light. You know how in hospital, they never turn the lights off? Just because they have to be able to see to do their jobs. Selfish fuckers.

 

That was a joke (mostly). I have nothing but respect for doctors and nurses, especially after meeting Dr Calder. That woman worked miracles in a morgue in West Belfast. She essentially headed off an escalation in the conflict in Northern Ireland single-handedly. I might have brought her the ‘test subjects’, but the anti-viral agent that she created saved thousands, if not millions of lives. The third of which was mine. The first was a constable in the Northern Ireland Police Service who had just been promoted to the public relations team in the barracks. (And who was incredibly lucky that I’d realised in time that I didn’t need to take extreme measures to avoid her teeth since she’d already bitten me. Because otherwise she would have been learning to walk again on prosthetics, and would be either wearing false teeth or eating through a straw.) The second was Dr Steven Jinks.

 

I had nightmares during my little sleep of what I’d done to the first ‘test subject’. But as I might have said to Helena, had I seen her, it was the only way I could think of to save her. Because in the end it was for my Helena, anything I did, if I was honest.

 

When I woke up, the little redhead was in the room, half asleep, a small pool of slabber staining her t-shirt where the edge of her mouth rested. She caught my eye as I experimentally opened it – just the one, nothing too ambitious – and let out a squeal that probably woke some of the inhabitants of the morgue from their eternal slumber.

 

“MYKA!”

 

I lifted my hands up to my ears – or at least I tried. There was a cannula in my left arm and I nearly yanked the wee bastard out because red-head was trying to deafen me back into a coma.

 

“Fuck me, ginger, are you trying to kill me?” I asked, my voice coming out all croaky and gross.

 

“Sorry Myka,” she said in an exaggerated stage whisper.

 

“Yeah, that’s much better,” I said sarcastically.

 

Pete chose that moment to come running in at high speed, sliding across the floor like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, and barely avoiding landing on top of me in the bed. I think it was the force of my glare that repelled him, myself.

 

“Myka!”

 

“Yes, that’s my name,” I said, impatiently. “Does anybody want to tell me why I’m still here? I believe I asked you to put me down, Constable Lattimer.”

 

He reddened slightly.

 

“Sorry, Myka, but Chief Superintendent Frederic asked Dr Calder if you could be brought back, and she said that if the anti-viral thingie worked we could. And then Frederic ordered me to get you restrained until they could test the cure. And it worked! So now you’re here, and you’re alive! Yay!”

 

He actually said “Yay.” I have never before in my life heard a grown human utter that word. I hope to never again be subjected to such horror.

 

I glared at him a bit more; that made me feel better.

 

“All right then, I’ll let you off, seeing as you were under orders and all. Where is Frederic?”

 

He shifted uncomfortably.

 

“She’s taking care of the fallout.”

 

“Fallout? What does that mean?”

 

“The virus – someone was using it to try and cause some sort of trouble in West Belfast. This was a test, apparently, to see how well the virus would work. The intelligence we’ve got suggests that it was a plot by some weird breakaway sect of the Loyalists to get the British Army to really crack down on the Catholic communities in Belfast, and even the rest of Northern Ireland, and pretty much wipe them out. Some sort of a conspiracy, like. It was just supposed to make people kill each other, from what we can tell, but it turned them into those things instead.” He sounded very serious and professional, suddenly, and I could see why he was a police officer.

 

I was stunned, however, at what he said. Why would anyone do something like that? I mean, there’d been years of conflict, but each side seemed to limit themselves to the sort of tit-for-tat killings and bombings we were all used to, with the occasional spree. You know, normal stuff. This was a bit – calculated – for Northern Ireland.

 

Pete was looking at me carefully.

 

“She said you’d think about it, that you’d have ideas.”

 

“Who did?” I asked, eyes narrowed.

 

“Well, two ‘shes’, actually. The English girl and Chief Superintendent Frederic were talking about it, and she said you would think it was strange and out of character for them to come up with something like this.”

 

I frowned. Because the two ‘shes’ were right. It was strange, and it was out of character for any of the various terrorist organisations in Norn Iron to do something like this. It was more supervillain territory. Like Dr Evil or whatever.

 

“Do yous know who’s responsible?”

 

He shook his head.

 

“That’s what Chief Superintendent Frederic is off investigating, with any help she can get, basically. More than half of the staff at the barracks were killed during the zombie thing, and most of the other half are in hospital recovering.”

 

I thought for a bit longer. It was a strange idea, this, to try and start off a more serious conflict and get the British Army to land on Catholic areas with even more force. Very ambitious.

 

Pete was looking at me a bit worriedly.

 

“What’s the matter, big lad?”

 

His shoulders dropped and he met my eyes, looking guilty.

 

“Frederic – she sent your woman home. Back to London.”

 

“Helena?” I asked, quietly.

 

He dropped his eyes to his feet, shifting uncomfortably.

 

“Yeah. Said she needed to get back home because she’s not really safe here. She’s not wrong, like.”

 

I nodded, sadly.

 

“Yeah, she’s not.”

 

I went quiet then. The wee redhead stood up.

 

“I’m going to go and get Dr Calder, she wanted to know when you woke up.”

 

“Okay,” I said. And then I said, “What’s your name, chicken?”

 

She smiled at me, turning her head back as she left the room.

 

“Claudia Donovan.”

 

I was alone with Pete.

 

“Sit down, you big eejit, will you?”

 

“All right, bossy boots,” he said, slumping down in the chair Claudia had just vacated.

 

“Thanks, Pete. I appreciate what you did for me.”

 

He looked at me in disbelief.

 

“I didn’t do anything! You had yourself hog-tied before I even got to you, you weren’t going anywhere. And you had that faceplate over you, so you couldn’t even bite anybody.”

 

“Did she see?” I asked, quietly.

 

He dropped his head again.

 

“Yeah, sorry. She stayed with you the whole time. Out of eating range, like, until we got you cured...”

 

I saw him physically resist the urge to say something filthy after he noticed his choice of words. He pulled himself together, however, and continued.

 

“And then she sat with you in here, holding your hand, until Frederic sent her home. They practically had to drag her out of here, you know. I think she really likes you.”

 

I smiled but it was a bit of a sad effort.

 

“Thanks for saying that, Pete. I like her too, but it doesn’t really matter, does it? She’s from over there, and with my history, I can’t be going moving over to England. And I think it would all come between us eventually. Too much bad history.”

 

He shook his head at me.

 

“You’re a funny one, She-Ra. You don’t meet someone like her every day, you know. And you don’t get chemistry like that all the time. The place was coming down with the chemistry when yous were in the same room. I’d grab it with both hands if I had the chance to feel that way about someone. No matter what history there was between your countries. Because you’re not your country, love, and neither is she. You’re just two people who might love each other. That’s more important than any of the stupid shite that goes on over here.”

 

Dr Calder came in just then, bustling around and doing doctor things, and Pete slipped out, leaving me open-mouthed and thoughtful. He really wasn’t what he seemed, that fella. I liked him a lot. Even if my granny would have called him a dirty orange bastard.

 

 

It took a couple of days for me to be strong enough to leave the hospital. Claudia and Pete stayed with me, one or both of them at all times, during those days. And they filled me in on what I’d missed. When I’d turned zombie they had restrained me, strapped me to the morgue table, and after testing the cure on experimental patient #2, they gave it to me and Steve. I didn’t come round until several days later – apparently the virus did a number on my system even after they gave me the cure. In the meantime they made a few dozen more doses of the cure. Pete went out on a few missions inside the barracks and cured about ten soldiers, one of whom had the electronic coded key for the Land Rovers. They got me, Steve and almost-torso out of there in the Land Rover and down to the hospital, which was besieged with the attacked and the already zombied. They brought the cure with them and the hospital started replicating it in large numbers in their labs, and some bright spark suggested using dart guns to administer it. And off they went. By the time I’d woken up, it had been more or less eradicated, and Chief Superintendent Frederic was already dealing with the “fallout” of a very sophisticated plot. There was a hell of a lot more to all this, I knew, but it wasn’t my problem now; it was Frederic’s.

 

I gave Claudia a long hug and wished her luck before I left the hospital. I didn’t think I’d be seeing her again. Pete drove me home; he insisted on it. He knew he was taking his life in his hands, and he knew that he was putting me at risk if anyone recognised him. But I didn’t care much, should the truth be told. Half my neighbours were still in the hospital I’d just left and most of the other half were dead. He played it safe, borrowing a car out of the police impound so at least I wouldn’t be dropped off in a car that they could trace back to a policeman. I looked around as he pulled up outside.

 

“Listen,” I said, shifting my shoulders awkwardly and palming the back of my neck, “I would invite you in for a cup of tea but if anybody sees you – anybody recognises you – you might end up at the bottom of Lough Neagh.”

 

He smiled at me.

 

“No problem, She-Ra. I’m just glad you’re home safe.” It was his turn to shift uncomfortably.

 

“Listen, I shouldn’t be doing this, but have you any weapons in the house?”

 

I stared at him, a bit confused.

 

“No, apart from the odd knife or whatever, but you mean a firearm?” He nodded. “No, I haven’t had them in the house for years. Since…”

 

“Martino?” he finished for me.

 

I raised an eyebrow.

 

“Frederic told you about that, then?”

 

“Yeah,” he said, unabashed. “Sounds to me like you had no choice, and you did us all a favour getting rid of Jimmy MacPherson. He was a fucking psycho, that one.”

 

“You’re not wrong there. Did she tell you everything?”

 

He nodded, searching my eyes. He was a nice fella, this Pete. I liked him a lot. I don’t mean in a sexual way. I’m not 100% gay, and he was attractive enough, but there was something fraternal between us – more like comrades-in-arms.

               

“Anyway, listen,” he leaned down, searching under his seat with his right hand, finding something and pulling it out with a tearing sound. He came up with a gun that had been taped under the chair. He stripped off the tape and handed it to me, continuing, “This weapon is untraceable, so if you’re caught with it, nobody else’ll get in trouble. And I’m sure Chief Superintendent Frederic will look after you since you saved all our arses back there.”

 

“I did not indeed. All I did was nearly get yousens all killed. I got bit by a zombie – how’s that saving your arses?” I said indignantly.

 

“Aw fuck away off Myka, you did fucking save everybody. You got two zombies to the morgue single-handedly so the doctor could test on them, and you managed to truss yourself up like a rotisserie chicken so you couldn’t hurt anybody when you got bit. You’re a fucking hero, you deserve a medal, love. And if Frederic could do it, you’d have one. You should hear the way she talks about you.”

 

I raised an eyebrow at that. It was hard not to believe Pete when he talked like that; and what was that about Frederic talking about me? I shrugged my shoulders and said thanks, hiding the very small handgun in the inside pocket of the loose jacket I had been given at the hospital. All my clothes were good for nothing by the time I’d been bitten, zombied, un-zombied and in and out of a coma. I remember thinking that I must remember to send Dr Calder a thank you card for her leather jacket. I think that zombie would have taken my arm off without it. As it was the damn thing had been shredded.

 

“Frederic wanted you to have something to protect yourself. She looked a bit worried. She didn’t tell me why. But watch out for yourself, and keep that close, okay?” he said, indicating the gun. He leaned over and gave me a big hug.

 

“Maybe I’ll see you around, She-Ra.”

 

“Not if I see you first, Rambo.”

 

We grinned at each other and I got out of the car, walking through the alleyway to the back gate of my house, not looking back. I wasn’t crying, I just had a cold. In my eyes.  

 

I stashed the little gun (a Kahr P380, which I’d never seen before in the flesh, as it were) under the coffee table at first, just in case. I made a quick trip out to the local shop to get some fresh food, because I’d either eaten everything or it had gone off in this last week or so. I made some dinner – an omelette again, as I was feeling nostalgic – and decided to have an early night after all the shenanigans of the last two weeks. I took the gun with me, putting it under the mattress but within easy reach. I always had a combat knife under my pillow – hypervigilance and all that. But it was a ‘just in case’ type thing. No-one had tried to harm me – I had a reputation, after MacPherson and Sam. Arthur had put the word out that I was some sort of enforcer and they’d used me to get rid of them because they were troublemakers.

 

I drifted off pretty quickly and I dreamed of Helena. I could hear her voice, the way she said my name, the touch of her fingers against my face. Then I realised I was awake, or mostly anyway. There was somebody there, somebody touching my face. I had a bit of a flash back to MacPherson and I moved before I could think, the knife in my hands, shooting up to my knees in one movement, pushing the knife against the throat I could only see as a flash of white in the dark room.

 

“Myka,” she said breathlessly, swallowing carefully against the blade of the knife.

 

“Fuck.” I dropped the knife, breathing hard. “Is that really you?”

 

I reached over and turned the lamp on. It was, indeed, her.

 

“I’m so sorry, love. I thought you were…I’m sorry.” I collapsed back against the headboard and put my head in my hands. I didn’t know what was going on, my head felt like it was going to explode.

 

She sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling my right hand from my face and holding it in hers.

 

“I’m sorry, Myka. I should have known better than to wake you like that. I should have called or something, but I never had a number for you and Mrs Frederic wouldn’t tell me how to get in touch with you. So I got desperate.”

 

I looked up at her, dropping my spare hand into my lap.

 

“How did you get in without me hearing?”

 

“Remember my stint with the car thief? I did a couple of weeks with a burglar too. And I already knew about all your little booby traps.”

 

I took a deep breath. My heart was thundering. I could have killed her. I nearly did.

 

“I’m so sorry, darling. It’s not your fault. I knew better. I just couldn’t wait any longer. She wasn’t going to let me see you. She said it was too dangerous.”

 

I looked at her hand which was holding mine, fingers tracing across my palm.

 

“And you didn’t consider that maybe she might be right?” I looked up at her, violence in my eyes.

 

She didn’t shrink back.

 

“I know exactly how dangerous you are, Myka Bering.” Her eyes were black, challenging.

 

“Then you should know you would be much better staying away.” I didn’t look away.

 

“Safer, perhaps. But better? Definitely not.” She wouldn’t look away, and I tried to resist, I really did. Because it was true; she was safer away from me. But we fell into one another, again and again, in an incredible mix of violence and tenderness, and when we were too worn out, we slept, tangled together. Until I heard glass smashing at the back of the house.

 

I was out of bed and pulling on my jeans before she had even opened her eyes. I pulled a t-shirt over my head and the gun out from under the mattress. I leaned down quickly, picking up the knife from where it had fallen on the floor earlier, and I waited for them to come. All I could do for Helena was keep her behind me. She started to sit up. I told her to hide under the bed. She began to protest. I turned my head slightly, teeth gritted.

 

“Please, Helena.”

 

She did what I asked, for some reason. I heard them storming up the stairs, and I didn’t know who they were or how many, but they were loud as fuck. They started kicking in doors. I knelt near the foot of the bed so I’d present a smaller target. They burst in and as soon as I saw the balaclavas, I started firing. (I was waiting to make sure I wasn’t being raided by the police – I didn’t fancy getting in a firefight with the cops. But the police didn’t wear balaclavas.) I aimed for their legs first, because getting shot in the leg is a lot less permanent than a head shot. Also, it will let you find out your opponent’s intentions. If their intention is to scare, they will fall down and not get up, or they’ll retreat. If their intention is to kill, they will get back up or try shooting from the floor. It was, sadly, the latter. Two of them had burst in at first, and when they tried to lift their guns unsteadily from their prone positions on the floor, I shot them both in the face, in quick succession. There were at least three more; I could hear them shouting to one another. I just waited, and they made their way in, thundering around like idiots. They were dead idiots in very short order. They managed to get off a few rounds themselves, but they only hit the wall above my head. Then I ran out of rounds. The tiny gun Pete had provided, bless him, had only 7 rounds, and I’d just used them all. There was at least one more fella in the house, I could hear him moving around downstairs. So I sprinted out on my bare feet, crouching low. He was in the kitchen - I could hear him hit one of the pans that was hanging from the rack on the wall. I wondered who had hired these goons - they were about as professional as the zombies. He kept coming, anyway, a bit more stealthy than his mates, and he made his way up the stairs quietly, looking competent enough with the barrel of his gun low in front of him. I was at the top of the stairs, pressed to the wall. The lights were off, and he didn’t have night vision goggles. He got to the top of the stairs and started for the bedroom where two of the fellas’ bodies were slumped in the doorway. He didn’t even look around him. It was stupidly easy to slip behind him and jam the knife in the side of his neck, aiming for the carotid artery as I’d been trained. I grabbed the back of his body armour and pulled him off balance with my left hand, and twisted the knife in my right. I must have hit home, because he struggled but passed out in about 30 seconds, the artery spurting blood in abstract patterns on the wall, eclipsing the flowery wallpaper that my mother had favoured. I lowered him gently to the floor, blood still pumping all over the place, and as I did so Helena emerged carefully from the bedroom. I don’t know what I looked like, but I imagine the word feral might have covered it. This was about the fifth time she’d seen me kill or maim someone or something, and yet her eyes only widened sympathetically as she got close enough in the dark hallway to take in the blood that was covering my right hand and wrist. I lifted my unbloodied finger to my lips, and gestured at her to go back inside. The sixth man had been dispatched near-silently, but I didn’t know if he was the last or not.

 

I wiped off the excess blood from my hand and wrist onto my jeans so my grip wouldn’t slip, then took a quick tour around the house, taking the last fella’s gun with me. It was nice, a Heckler and Koch MP5. They always use them on TV, for some reason. I remember reading about them in a crime book when I was younger, before everything went to shit. I didn’t think I’d ever need to actually use one of the damn things. The book explained that they’re well-made and reliable because they have this technology called roller-locking, which stops guns from jamming up. They can even be fired underwater. And it also said that the company used to make sewing machines. It’s a funny old world, isn’t it? From sewing machines to machine guns. A bit like me going from schoolgirl to murderer, I suppose.  I toured the house quickly, but there weren’t any more of the would-be killers. I could see outside that there was a car pulled up, some sort of SUV type that you didn’t often see around here. The engine was running. I put some shoes on and ran outside, grabbed the keys out of the ignition so it wouldn’t get stolen straight away, and then ran back inside to get Helena.

 

She was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding one of the fellas’ guns remarkably inexpertly. She pointed it at me as I came through the door. I just stopped and looked at her. She blushed.

 

“Sorry. I didn’t know if it was going to be you or another one of them.”

 

“No problem, sweetheart. Now get your stuff, we have to go.”

 

“Go? Go where?”

 

“I haven’t a fucking clue. But seriously, we have to go. Somebody is trying to kill you, or me, or both, so we have to go and hide somewhere.”

 

She was getting dressed quickly as I spoke, thank God. It was nice that she actually listened to me without needing too much explanation. She trusted me, for some reason. I grabbed some clothes and stuffed them in a bag from my wardrobe. I ran down the stairs, still carrying the H&K under one arm. I grabbed a few bits out of the sideboard. My passport, driving licence, birth certificate, and a few other bits – family photo albums and the like – in case I never got to come back here.

 

She followed me down the stairs at a run and I grabbed my house keys as I went out the door, half wondering why I was bothering. Even if whoever was after us didn’t send anyone else, the police would be here shortly. We needed to get the fuck out.


	8. Fleeing on the ferry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a transitional chapter here. I should probably point out that there is a distinct lack of zombies from here on in. (Well, there might be the odd one or two.) So I apologise for the slightly misleading title. Myka and Helena are sent away by Mrs Frederic - but why is the police Chief Superintendent protecting Myka, and from whom?

 

* * *

 

I ran round the big SUV and pulled myself up in to the driver’s seat. Helena got in a few seconds after. I put my bag on her lap in case we needed to make a swift exit from the car, too. I drove off at a moderate speed, even though I was itching to put my foot down. It wouldn’t help to get noticed for a stupid reason like speeding. Police in Northern Ireland didn’t tend to have the time or energy to deal with speeding, not with murders and bombs happening every few days, and the constant attacks on their own personnel. But it was better to be safe than sorry. Or, you know, dead.

 

I kept off the motorway; motorways meant cameras. I drove down through Finaghy, away from the Catholic end of the town, trying to think of a decent place to hide.

 

“Have you got a mobile phone, Helena?” I asked, concentrating on not driving like a demon.

 

“Yes.”

 

“In a minute, when I’ve parked us up, will you ring the barracks and ask for Pete? I don’t know if he’ll be there, but it’s the only thing I can think of. Unless Chief Superintendent Frederic gave you a number?”

 

She looked at me a bit doubtfully.

 

“She didn’t. But you just killed six people, Myka. Are you sure you want to call Mrs Frederic?”

 

I was. Something about the way Frederic had talked to me in the garage of the barracks made me think that she might be on my side. And Pete giving me that handgun had most likely saved my life, and Helena’s. I suspected it had been Frederic’s idea for him to do that.

 

I nodded, and Helena started looking up the number on her phone. I went down some of the back roads that led to Lisburn, the next town. I parked the car off the road slightly, where it shouldn’t be too visible, and killed the lights and the engine. I gave her Ladyship the nod and she made the call in her best telephone voice. It was even posher than her normal voice, and I was a little turned on by it. She sounded like she should be wearing jodhpurs.

 

“Hello, would it be at all possible to speak to Constable Peter Lattimer, please?” There was a pause. “Yes, I’m Helena Wells, an old friend. I have lost his home telephone number and I wanted to get back in touch. Is he available?” Another pause. “Of course.”

 

She put the call on mute and said, “I’m on hold.”

 

A few seconds later a sonorous voice came on the line. It wasn’t Pete, it was Chief Superintendent Frederic. I could hear her without the need for a loudspeaker.

 

“Helena. Where are you? Is Ms Bering with you?”

 

“Yes, she is, Mrs Frederic. There was an attack. We only just escaped with our lives.”

 

I distinctly heard a sigh of relief on the other end.

 

“Thank God for that. I was informed about ten minutes ago about some shooting in the area. We have men on the way. Will they be at any risk?”

 

“No, Mrs Frederic, they shouldn’t be in any danger. Myka took care of it. You should find six.”

 

A pause.

 

“I see. I’m glad Constable Lattimer dropped her off home, in that case. It seems our precautions were necessary.”

 

This was getting a bit strange. Why did she care so much whether I lived or died? And why on earth would she get one of her men to give me an illegal firearm? This was just getting weirder.

 

“Ms Wells, I need to speak to Ms Bering. Can you put me on loudspeaker?”

 

There was little need for that, but Helena did as she asked.

 

“Chief Superintendent Frederic. Thank you for your concern.” My voice was dry, but not as flat as it would have been a few weeks ago. She had proved herself to be a sort of ally, this woman. But there was still something going on that I was clearly not in on.

 

“Ms Bering. I am relieved that you are still with us. Do you have a vehicle?”

 

“Yes. The boys that came for us were in a big SUV. I’ve borrowed it.”

 

“Good. Do you have the registration?”

 

I got out and popped round the front of the car, then read it to Chief Superintendent Frederic.

 

“I will ensure that you are not followed by any of the police or patrols in Belfast. Can you get to the docks? There will be tickets in your name, you simply need to show your passports.”

 

“A ship? Where are we going?”

 

“For now, Stranraer. From there I want you to drive to London. Ms Wells, can you provide funds for fuel and anything else you might need? Ms Bering’s accounts will likely be tracked; the attack was at her house, so there is very little I can do about that.”

 

“Of course,” Helena said, offhandedly. Okay, we were going to have to have a talk, me and the princess. Because the way she said that? It sounded like she could fund an impromptu trip to Saturn.

 

“Very well. I need you to make your way to the docks immediately and you will be directed to the next fast ferry to the mainland. The car will be marked as one of ours on the relevant databases so you will not be bothered by police. When you get to London, contact me on this number.” She reeled off a series of digits which I tucked away in my brain. An eidetic memory had its benefits.

 

“And ladies? Be careful. Someone is after you, Myka, and possibly you too, Helena.”

 

She hung up. I looked at Helena with an eyebrow raised.

 

“Do you have any idea at all what’s happening here?”

 

She shook her head, biting her lip. She looked devastatingly sexy, I couldn’t help but notice.

 

I grabbed some wet wipes from my bag and cleaned the remaining blood from my face and hands and after some serious wriggling managed to change my clothes so I looked a bit less like an axe murderer. Then I started driving, still taking mostly back roads, but since it was the middle of the night in Belfast, even the main roads were nearly empty. We made it to the docks in about twenty minutes. When we got to the main entrance for cars, there was a small security checkpoint. I opened the car window and was asked my name, our passports were checked, and then I was handed tickets for the next fast ferry which would be leaving in approximately half an hour. I was directed to the lane that would lead me to where I needed to leave the car in the hold. After some creative manoeuvring – I hadn’t driven for ages, and this car was way bigger than anything I’d ever driven – we made it to our designated parking area. I stowed the guns – Helena had held on to one, for some reason – under the back seats, where there was a storage area. We went upstairs and settled ourselves in the restaurant area of the large boat, and I went to get us some tea. When I came back, we sat in silence for a while, sipping our tea.

 

“This is all a bit surreal, isn’t it?” she said, glassy-eyed with tiredness.

 

“Just a tad.”

 

I couldn’t really get my head round anything. Why anyone would want to attack me, and why Chief Superintendent Frederic would want to help me. I realise we’d established some trust with the whole zombie extravaganza, but regardless of that, I had just killed six people. It was self-defence, but normally one would imagine standing trial for that sort of thing, not being essentially smuggled out of the country by the policewoman in charge of local law enforcement.

 

“I don’t understand why she’s doing this. I should be in jail.” I felt like a child again, like when my family were killed. I was lost, rootless. Then she took my hand.

 

“I don’t understand either, Myka.” She lifted my chin so I’d meet her eyes. “But whatever is happening, we will face it together. You’re not alone.”

 

Do you ever get one of those moments when your whole world shifts, just a little? I’d had one all those years ago when Sister Clare had called me out of my English class to tell me there’d been a bomb. And here, another shift was taking place. I wasn’t just Myka Bering, not anymore. Not when she looked at me like that. We were Myka Bering and Helena Wells, and we were together. I knew so little about her, but I knew her. All of her. I didn’t say anything out loud. But I felt like I said everything with one look. She certainly did, in return.

 

We rested there, with our heads together, hands joined. The journey was only two hours. We made our way sleepily back to the car and followed the directions off the ship and then we were on the road, after a quick fill up at a petrol station. We got a few caffeine-filled beverages, hot and cold, to keep us awake and going all the way to London. I reckoned it would be about a seven hour drive if I really pushed it and there were no delays, otherwise it was anybody’s guess how long it would take.

 

It took 8 and three-quarter hours. (With four stops because, it appeared, Helena needed to stop every two hours to use the bathroom.) We were on the M25 when I asked Helena to ring Chief Superintendent Frederic. I reeled off the number and she stared at me for a moment.

 

“What?” I asked.

 

“Nothing,” she said, and made the call.

 

We were directed to an area called Harrow, and a police safe house there. Frederic wasn’t in the mood for talking, apparently, because the whole call lasted only about 40 seconds, start to finish. Helena put the address in her smartphone and we followed the directions to a featureless suburb. I parked the car carefully in the driveway of the house Chief Superintendent Frederic had instructed, and we both got out, walking to the door hand in hand. I might have mentioned this before, but her hand in mine was a comfort. I didn’t know what I was walking into, or even why I was here. Having her there, it made all that not matter so much. It’s weird, that one person can change your whole perspective. I was hypervigilant, mentally scarred from all I’d done and had done to me, and the touch of one hand could make all of that seem like nothing.

 

We knocked on the door, as instructed, and waited. A minute or so later it opened, and Claudia Donovan appeared.

 

“Hey guys!” she yelled, holding her arms out for a hug. I caught Helena’s eye, shrugged, and grabbed the little redhead. Helena did the same, and we did a weird three-way hug for a second. Then I stood back.

 

“Are you gonna let us in, chicken?” I raised my eyebrow.

 

“Oh, yeah! Come in, come in.”

 

We walked through into a beige room that contained a couple of sofas, a large TV, music centre, and a very overexcited Peter Lattimer.

 

“SHE-RA!” He flung himself at me and I just about had enough time to plant my feet so that he wouldn’t knock me over entirely. He gave me a giant hug, and actually lifted me off my feet for a minute.

 

“Lattimer. What about ye?” (This is a standard greeting in Norn Iron, which sounds approximately like “whaddaboucheeee”. It can be shortened to “Bout ye,” and is sometimes followed by the term of endearment “Big girl” or “Big lad” depending on the gender identification of the person one is addressing. Or on special occasions, one might refer to them as “You great big eejit, ye” or “You big hairy bollocks”.)

 

“Better now I’ve seen you. Chief Superintendent Frederic called and said you had been attacked and you’d taken down six fellas by yourself. Are you ever gonna stop all that heroic bollocks? You’re making me look bad.”

 

I gave him a mock glare.

 

“Why would I be making you look bad, He-Man? Because I’m only a wee skinny girl and you’re a big strong man and I could still take you down, is that what you mean? Or is it because I’ve got a hot girlfriend and you don’t?”

 

He stuck his bottom lip out like a big baby and I laughed. And then Helena laughed behind me. And I realised I’d just called her my girlfriend. I realise zombie apocalypses are not the traditional spawning ground of a new relationship, but even so, I would imagine that most ladies like to be asked that sort of thing before you start blurting it out everywhere. I felt her take my hand and subconsciously relaxed. She didn’t seem to mind, which meant it was okay. Probably. I took a deep breath.

 

“So, Terminator, what in the name of Jesus, Mary and Joseph are we doing here?”

 

“Honestly, Myka, I’ve no idea. We got orders, me, Claudia and Jinks, to get over here on the next flight from Aldergrove airport and then meet yous here. Other than that, I have no idea at all.”

 

As he said that last bit, Dr Steven Jinks entered the room behind Helena and Claudia. I went and gave him a hug too. I was being a total hug trollop today; normally I wouldn’t touch people unless I had to. But I was very happy to see this lot, for some reason.

 

“And what about you, Steve? Any idea what’s happening here?”

 

He shook his head.

 

“I was told to go with Pete and Claudia and meet you and Helena here. And that’s as much as I know.”

 

I didn’t know what to make of it all, so I thought it was time to do the decent thing.

 

“Who wants a cup of tea?”

 

Helena came with me to the kitchen, and we searched the cupboards and the fridge for the bits we needed to make the tea.

 

“So, girlfriend, eh?” she said, slightly mockingly. I went red.

 

“Sorry, love. I know we should have talked about it. I didn’t mean anything by it. It just slipped out…”

 

And then something was slipping in – to my mouth, that is. Her tongue, playing with mine in an extremely dirty way and thoroughly distracting me from whatever I was saying. She pushed me back against the wall, pulling my wrists above my head and pinning me there. Normally, as you might imagine, that sort of stuff does not go down well with me – being restrained. But with her – it was just fucking hot as all get out. I was finding it very difficult to control myself with her whole body pushed against me, and her mouth hot and fierce on mine. She finally let me go, and I think my knees gave out because I sank to the floor, back against the wall, and completely breathless.

 

“What are you doing to me?” I said, completely out of breath and entirely unable to think. 

 

“Nothing you don’t want me to,” she said in a low and husky voice, looking down at me as I sat on the floor. She looked smug and sexy as hell. I groaned quietly. If the others hadn’t been there, the kitchen would have been christened right there and then.

 

“And I am definitely your girlfriend, Myka Bering. I don’t give it up to just anyone, you know.” Her smile was positively filthy, and she went to finish making the tea. I had to take several deep breaths before I could get up to join her.

 

We found some biscuits and put them on a plate, and brought them through with the tea on a little tray. We popped it on the coffee table in the living room and we sat, all five of us, in companionable silence watching some reality TV shite that Jinksy and Claudia liked, apparently. Somebody wanted to be a top model, somewhere. I just drank my tea and smiled at Helena – who was my girlfriend. That was going to take some time to process, since I didn’t know whether I would ever be able to go home, or what was happening in my life at all.

 

We talked a bit, the five of us, about the zombie thing and the cure, and about the attack on my house. But none of us were any the wiser for it. No-one knew anything. And we were all from different places and backgrounds. Claudia was a trainee computer technician at the barracks, Steve was a doctor, Pete was a policeman, Helena was a journalist, and God only knows what the hell I was. After a while I started yawning, and eventually I had to admit defeat and ask if there was a bed I could use. Helena came along with me, although I have to say that she looked annoyingly good for someone who had been up for the best part of 24 hours. We hadn’t even talked about why and how she’d come to arrive at my little house.

 

Disappointingly, I was too tired to even make any advances on Ms Wells’ virtue, even after her provocative behaviour in the kitchen. She pouted a little when I didn’t immediately pounce on her, but she was knackered too, she just looked a bit prettier than I did. I wrapped myself around her, my face buried in her hair. I loved the way her hair smelled, even after a zombie apocalypse or a ten hour journey that started in the early hours of the morning. I loved everything about her. She smelled like the air after a thunderstorm. She reciprocated the snuggling, wrapping herself round me and pulling me closer. We fell asleep like some sort of human jigsaw puzzle. I’ve never slept so well in my whole life.

 

When I woke, it was still dark. I didn’t have the foggiest notion of what time it was. It could have been night or early morning, I didn’t know. What I did know was that Helena was fast asleep, still wrapped around me, like a part of me. She stirred as I moved a little, then made some sort of adorable snorting noise and burrowed into my neck.

 

I was awake then, for at least another hour, just enjoying her pressed against me, the sound of her breathing, and the soft scent of her hair. She stirred eventually, and I was both disappointed and happy when she opened her eyes. I could have watched her sleep for hours. Now that I say that, I realise it sounds creepy. Anyway she opened her eyes and just looked at me for a moment, as you do when someone is just staring at you like a creeper first thing in the morning. Comprehension dawned in her eyes after a few seconds, though, and she smiled at me.

 

“Good morning, sunshine.”

 

I grinned, shaking my head.

 

“Just had to say it, didn’t you, princess?”

 

She pulled me close and kissed me hard.

 

“You have _got_ to stop calling me that,” she said, against my lips, teeth gritted.

 

“Why? It makes you pissed off, and you look wild sexy when you’re pissed off. It’s your own fault, really.”

 

She pulled back and glared at me, and then started laughing.

 

“You’re such a pain in the arse, Myka Bering!”

 

“Yeah, like you don’t love it.”

 

She stopped kissing me for a moment and looked at me seriously. I stopped breathing for a moment.

 

“You know, you don’t know anything about me.”

 

Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting to hear. I thought for a moment. What did I know? She was beautiful, a journalist, could probably make a good living off stealing cars or burgling people’s houses, and she was English. And she was wonderful in more ways than I could count. She was the only person in my world that could make me calm. That was about it.

 

“You’re right, I suppose. I don’t, really.” I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. I wasn’t sure where this was going.

 

“I could be anyone, but you trust me. You care about me. Why is that?”

 

I shrugged. I didn’t know, in all honesty. And I’m not sure I cared. I just felt what I felt, and for once, that was enough for me.

 

“You don’t want to know about me?”

 

I smiled.

 

“I don’t care if you don’t want to tell me about your past or whatever. I just care about how I feel. How I feel when I’m with you.” I shrugged again. I might not be eloquent, but I knew that I didn’t care about who she was. I just cared that she was here, now. With me.

 

She smiled an incredible smile then that warmed me to the core. It was…radiant. That’s the word, I think. She was so stupidly, ridiculously beautiful that I felt a bit faint.

 

“You are incredible, Myka Bering. What you make me feel is like I belong somewhere, with someone. With you. For the first time in a long time.” Her eyes grew thoughtful, then. “Is that how you feel?”

 

I smiled at her. I was still entwined with her, one arm under her neck, the other around her waist. Her face was inches from mine. I didn’t want to get up, to have to leave this bed, this place – her side. So, I knew what she meant.

 

“I do. I love being here, with you. I never want to leave.”

 

She kissed me, and it was soft and sweet and tasted like home.

 

I pulled back, just for a second, and looked at her.

 

“You don’t have to tell me anything. But I’m happy to listen if you ever want to. It won’t change anything. Not for me.”

 

Famous last words, right?

 

We made love – because that’s what it was, now, whether either of us said it or not – until a polite knock at the door interrupted. Steve asked if we could come downstairs soon, because Chief Superintendent Frederic was on her way.

 

We searched out the bathroom and had a quick shower together. I didn’t fancy facing everyone after a morning of debauchery in the first place, but especially not smelling of sex as we both did. It was bad enough seeing their faces the first time round in the morgue, but at least then we had zombies to distract us all.

 

We changed and went downstairs, never straying far from one another. We found everyone sitting on the two large sofas, watching some morning television news show. There was a long report about the virus in West Belfast and the implications for the peace process, which made me snort. The peace process was never going to work – not after the Good Friday bombings. At the time, it had really looked like there was going to be an agreement, with both sides working out how the decommissioning of weapons was going to happen and how Northern Ireland was going to be governed. And when the announcement was made, a bomb went off. A bomb so massive and destructive that it took out most of the government of Northern Ireland and a substantial number of British government officials. The British Prime Minister had been badly injured. At that point, things degenerated severely. Neither side took responsibility for the bombing, and both sides blamed the other. It was a nightmare for years afterwards. People in Catholic neighbourhoods, like where I lived, were under an unofficial curfew for months. We were told that any Catholic caught out after 9pm was fair game for Loyalist execution squads. Many hundreds of people were murdered during those months. Before all of that, though, before it had all had gone so wrong for Northern Ireland, my family was murdered. My father worked on and off as a civil servant, and the police told me later that they believed that Loyalists had targeted him because he was a Catholic trying to work for the government. The joke of it was, my daddy wasn’t actually a Catholic at all. He wasn’t christened, he wasn’t anything. But that didn’t stop them from planting a bomb in the car and killing everyone that I loved in one fell swoop.

 

Helena brought me back to the present.

 

“Are you okay, Myka?” she whispered in my ear, trying not to attract anyone’s attention to me. I realised, to my shock and embarrassment, that I was crying. I wiped my eyes briskly.

 

“Yes, I’m fine, love, sorry.”

 

Pete was watching me with concern in his eyes, but he didn’t say anything, thank Christ. If he’d said anything in front of this lot I think I would have died. Neither Jinksy nor Claudia had seen. I pulled my face back into an expressionless mask, and tried to pay attention to whatever the fuck was going on.

 

“Why do you think she’s coming here? I mean, I don’t even get why we’re here. She scares the shite out of me, Jinksy.” That was Claudia. She sounded pretty terrified, to be fair.

 

“I don’t know, Claud. Maybe there’s something else going on with this zombie thing. That’s all we have in common, I guess.”

 

I liked Steve. He had a cheeky grin but he was very serene. It was easy to be near him, and he seemed to quieten down Claudia’s slightly more manic energy. I felt a bit bad, actually, that I hadn’t tried to reassure her myself. I should have realised that she’d be shitting herself about Frederic coming. But my mind was fairly well focused on one thing, and that was the woman sitting next to me.


	9. Black is the colour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mrs Frederic tells the gang what's really going on.

The doorbell rang, and Pete went to get it. And who should come trooping in but Dr Calder, Chief Superintendent Frederic, and Arthur. Arthur Nielsen, the man who, despite being some sort of scary top secret something-or-another in the IRA, had looked after me like I was his daughter for the last six years. And he was here in London with Chief Superintendent Frederic, the woman in charge of the barracks that housed the police and soldiers who directly _opposed_ the IRA. I just sat there, staring, open-mouthed.

 

“Myka.” That was all he said, his eyes sad, before sitting down beside me and taking my hand.

 

“Ms Bering, I know you will have questions for Arthur, but they will have to wait until we brief you on the current situation.” That was Frederic, of course, taking charge. I needed taking charge of at that particular moment, because I was floundering. My world was suddenly on a very shaky foundation, and the man sitting next to me with his incredible eyebrows and resemblance to a mole was the reason for it. I felt Helena slide her arm around my waist and pull me close. She looked concerned. I think I went a bit grey when I saw Arthur.

 

“We have a lot to talk about. Some of it, you will very likely not believe. But I will ask you to suspend your disbelief, for now, until we have filled you in on what is happening.”

 

She looked at me, in particular, for some reason.  I just raised an eyebrow. She continued.

 

“My name is Irene Frederic. I work for a secret government organisation that deals with dangerous items. These items are collected by the organisation and stored in a location known as the Warehouse.”

 

Her accent – it was changing, subtly, but definitely changing. Her vowels were slightly less rounded, her ‘R’s a bit sharper. American?

 

“These items are, for want of a better term, magical in nature. They are imbued with the characteristics of the person who created them, and activated in some way by strong emotion.”

 

“Fuck away off!” I scoffed, my eyebrows going up so sharply that they almost left my face behind. I looked round the room and the rest of them – Claudia, Pete, and Steve - were looking at Frederic like she was mental. Helena had simply narrowed her eyes slightly.

 

Mrs Frederic just looked at me disapprovingly until I fell silent. She wasn’t fucking serious, was she?

 

“One of the items in the Warehouse is a machine that allows a person to travel in time, to inhabit the mind of another person. It was created by another version of one of you.   In the future, a group of men known as the Shadow Regents will decide to change history. The machine in question does not allow a person to change history, only observe it. But one of these Shadow Regents, a man named Paracelsus, manages to use a group of other items – artefacts – to change the nature of the time machine, allowing them to physically travel in time and change the timeline. He and his friends set about disrupting the timeline to get rid of their opponents and use the contents of the Warehouse for their own gain. Those opponents, for the most part, are in this room.”

 

I love science fiction. I love the idea of time travel. But this? This sounded like Frederic had been smoking the good stuff. I wanted to tell her to wise up, but as I looked around, something in Helena’s expression gave me pause. And then I looked at Arthur, who was looking at me sympathetically. I decided that discretion was the better part of valour at that juncture and kept listening. I was relieved to see that Claudia, Steve and Pete looked just as puzzled – and sceptical - as I felt.

 

“In essence, the Shadow Regents decided to either eliminate each of you or try to enmesh you in situations you could not escape so that you would be unable to become part of the Warehouse team. They quickly discovered that their attempts to kill you were destined to be unsuccessful. Small things would conspire to make their attempts futile. They then decided to take a different approach. They went back in history to ensure that, for example, Myka’s mother Jean’s family would remain in Ireland rather than immigrate to the United States. Their idea, I believe, was to separate Myka’s parents so that she would never be born. But as a wise woman once said, the ink with which our lives are inscribed is indelible. Somehow, Myka’s father ended up in Belfast and he met Myka’s mother. Similar changes in the timeline have occurred in all of your lives, bar Miss Wells. She is here because another version of me brought her forward in time. She was actually born in 1866. But I will explain that part another day. The crux of the matter is that the Warehouse is an incredibly important place, and you are all needed there.”

 

I stared at Helena. She gave me a tiny smile and a shrug. Okay, so I was going to need to process things. I was starting to feel like I might pass out.

 

Frederic looked at me in concern, but continued after I nodded slightly.

 

“What I want to ask you to consider, each of you, is whether you would like to join the team and help me and Arthur to protect the Warehouse, to protect the world. If you think I am being melodramatic, consider this. In the timeline that originally existed, the Good Friday Agreement was a success. In _this_ timeline, the Shadow Regents used an artefact bomb to destroy the proceedings and to lengthen the war in Northern Ireland. They also used an artefact to murder Myka’s parents and sister, when it became clear that they would not allow Myka to be involved in the conflict and were in fact thinking about moving the family to the United States. It was only happenstance that Myka was not in the car that day. The zombie virus was another such attack…”

 

Okay, so I’m not proud of this. But I fainted. Pitched forward, apparently, and hit my head on the coffee table, not incredibly hard, but enough to split my scalp and bleed impressively. Or so Arthur told me later. I have had a lot of unpleasant surprises in my life, but that day I’d been told that my parents were murdered because of me, that I was the target, that Arthur, my mentor and commanding officer in the IRA was in cahoots with the local police commander, that my new girlfriend was some sort of time traveller, and that there was an evil organisation of time travelling fruitcakes who were hell-bent on getting rid of me and everyone else in the room. Oh, and the continuation of the war in Northern Ireland was their fault. And possibly mine, because it seemed like at least some of their efforts were to, as Frederic put it, enmesh me in a situation I couldn’t escape. So I think a little fainting fit was probably excusable. If a little embarrassing.

 

I woke up, once again, with Helena holding my hand. And I groaned when she said it.

 

“Good morning, sunshine.” She laughed loudly when I groaned, tossing her hair. She was so beautiful. And so… _old!_

 

“What the fuck happened?” I asked her, feeling a bit dazed. We were back in the bedroom we’d slept in.

 

“You passed out, darling.”

 

“What?” I sat up too fast, and my head spun. It hurt. I touched it gingerly and found a wound dressing at my hairline.

 

She smiled at me sympathetically.

 

“I think Irene threw a bit too much at you there, sweetheart. I did warn her.”

 

I stared at her. Irene? What the actual fuck?

 

“Uh.” Eloquent, I was not. She smiled gently, sympathetically. I tried to cobble some words together, but I was just overwhelmed as everything ‘Irene’ had said came back to me.

 

“I suppose you probably have some questions about me. Am I right?”

 

I nodded, dumbly. I dread to think what I looked like just then. I know what I felt like - a six year old who’d had too much input and was asking her mummy for help. Helena ran her hand through her hair in that distracting way of hers.

 

“Could you… I mean, could we talk about this later? I already have a fair bit to think about, love,” I said, dazed.

 

“Of course, darling,” she said, smiling softly at me.

 

“So, how is your head?” she asked.

 

“It’s okay, I think,” I said, shaking my head experimentally. I was a bit dizzy, but not too bad. I did feel as sick as anything, to be honest, because everything I knew was wrong. Whether this time travel business was true or a bizarre fantasy, something was going on and Arthur, the one constant in my life for the last ten years, was slap-bang in the middle of it. 

 

“Is everyone still downstairs?”

 

She nodded.

 

I stood up slowly.

 

“Shall we, then?” I held out my hand to her and she took it.

 

The others looked at me with concern when I walked back into the living room. I just scowled. I wasn’t in the form for that sort of emotion. I plonked myself down ungracefully and raised an eyebrow at Frederic.

 

“I think I will leave you to talk to the others, Ms Bering. I need to speak with Dr Calder and Arthur anyway.”

 

Helena had settled herself next to me, one hand in mine. She was rubbing the skin on my wrist soothingly. I didn’t want to be soothed, just then, but I didn’t say anything.

 

“You okay, She-Ra?” Pete gave me one of his stupid grins.

 

“Aye, I’m fine, Lattimer. What’s the craic then? What did I miss?” (“The craic” is the stuff that is happening. Good craic is the highest compliment one can attain in Norn Irish society, e.g. she’s good craic, so she is. Also, so she is, so I am, so we are – those are all perfectly acceptable additions to almost any sentence.)

 

“Not much, actually. When they took you upstairs, Mrs Frederic asked us to consider coming with her to the US – South Dakota – and seeing this Warehouse for ourselves.” That was Steve.

 

“And what was your conclusion?” I asked, dully.

 

“We all want to see it. To see if it’s real, I suppose. I’m not convinced, but either these people are all really delusional – no offence, Helena – or there is a hell of a lot more going on here than any of us had any idea about. And I joined the police force to protect people. It sounds like protecting this Warehouse might be one of the most important jobs in the world. So I’m in.” That was Pete, and he looked awfully serious and sincere.

 

“And what about your families?” I asked, curious.

 

Claudia looked away after meeting my eyes for about a second. Okay, that look I knew well. She didn’t have anyone.

 

“Steve?”

 

“My family are in the States – what’s left of them – so it’s kind of a no brainer for me to at least go and have a look.”

 

“Alright then, Pete, what about you?”

 

“Well, my Da was killed by the IRA when I was a kid. My ma lives here with my sister, but if it all went well over there and I wanted to stay, Mrs Frederic said she could sort out Visas for them both.”

 

I winced, involuntarily. His daddy had been killed by the Ra. He reached over and put his hand on my knee, and looked me right in the eye.

 

“Hey, She-Ra. You didn’t do it. It’s not your fault.”

 

How could he be so forgiving? I had been a member of the organisation that had murdered his father – primarily because _my_ father, mother and sister had been murdered and that had filled me with hatred that had led to me becoming a vengeful, twisted fucker. I really didn’t understand it. But he really didn’t blame me, not even a little bit, I could see that in his eyes. I shook my head a little bit, rubbed my eyes – the usual things you do, when you haven’t got a bloody clue what to do next. Helena saved me the trouble of working it out.

 

“I would like to go to the Warehouse, Myka. But only if you will come with me. I feel like I have a responsibility to try and dispose of these Shadow Regents somehow, if only to repay my debt to Mrs Frederic. But not without you.”

 

I swear, this lot were just trying to make me cry in front of them. I bit my lip, hard, drawing blood.

 

“Okay.”

 

She let out a sigh of relief.

 

“First of all, though, I need to speak to Arthur.”

 

“Very well, Ms Bering.” That was Frederic, of course. She and Dr Calder were at the doorway.

 

“Arthur is waiting for you in the kitchen.”

 

I squeezed Helena’s hand before letting go. I stood up, making my way unsteadily into the kitchen.

 

He was sitting at the kitchen table, looking at me guiltily. I sat down. I didn’t say anything. Honestly, right then I didn’t even have the energy to form a sentence. I just looked at him and waited.

 

“So, Myka. You will have gathered that I am not exactly who I appeared to be when we first met.”

 

I nodded.

 

“I grew up here just like you. I didn’t know anything about the Warehouse until I was in my 30s. I was, briefly, involved in the Republican movement in my youth, but only in the political side - I didn’t get involved with the paramilitaries until after you were born. Mrs Frederic – the older version of her, anyway, and an older version of me – persuaded me that I was supposed to be born in the US and that all of this – my whole life – was a result of this organisation who had changed the timeline. The fact that it was me who was telling me all this made it a bit easier for me to stomach. So I went to the US, I saw the Warehouse, I eventually believed. Our Mrs Frederic and I devised a plan to get you all together in the right place, somehow, to try to fight these people. They have caused so much chaos, Myka, so much death.” He took his glasses off and started cleaning them – it was a nervous habit of his.

 

“It’s not just your family. My daddy was killed in a random shooting – he was just in the wrong place. He wasn’t even a Catholic, he was Jewish. Without the Shadow Regents, I would have been born in America, not here, and he would have lived. After I found out about the Warehouse I used his death as an excuse to join the IRA and eventually become their intelligence specialist. Mrs Frederic said the Warehouse thought it was a good idea. How a building can think, let alone communicate that something is a good or bad idea, I don’t know. But it led me to you, and for that I am grateful – even if I had to do some things I am not proud of in order to get here.”

 

“There is one thing,” he said, hesitantly, “that I should tell you. Sam Martino. He was your first love, I know. But he was also the man who led you to become part of the IRA. The man who persuaded you to take revenge. I know that you were already hurt, already bitter, already devastated. But he preyed on that. He was paid a great deal of money to do so. By the Shadow Regents, I’m afraid.”

 

“So, he was paid to seduce me and get me to join up. So I wouldn’t somehow end up in the US and the Warehouse?” I said it flatly. I didn’t have much spare emotion.

 

“Yes. And he did his job well. Until he saw – he saw how much you changed, how much it was damaging you to do what you were doing. He came to me then, filled with remorse. And I sent him to Mrs Frederic. Which is, as you can probably guess, how he ended up dead. He wasn’t as careful as he should have been, and someone saw him meeting with one of Mrs Frederic’s people, and it got back to my boss, who told MacPherson to deal with it. I had to do some very fast talking, I can tell you, to stop them from putting you in a shallow grave next to Sam. I’m just sorry I couldn’t help him. He was a good man, in the end. It was too late then, of course. But still.”

 

I nodded. I didn’t have anything to say.

 

“All of this,” he gesticulated wildly, “is much bigger than you or me, or even Mrs Frederic. The Warehouse – the things it contains – they could be used to do terrible things. They already have been. Northern Ireland in the other timeline – the Good Friday agreement _worked_ , Myka. It wasn’t perfect, of course, people being what they are, but there was peace. The weapons were decommissioned, there were no more bombings. People were able to move on. Here – well, you see it. These men are pure evil and they have interfered with our lives – all of our lives. The older version of Mrs Frederic brought Ms Wells here and she destroyed the time machine as her last act on this earth. She trapped the Shadow Regents here in this timeline when she did so. They have to be stopped and the world has to be protected. You – all of you – are the people the Warehouse has chosen to protect it. I’m sorry I never told you any of this, but I didn’t think you would believe it. And you had to come together, all of you, on your own. We’d already interfered enough in the timeline, and who knows what we might have changed inadvertently? I didn’t honestly expect the outbreak of a zombie virus to be the cause, but here we are. Now we have to try and fix things and take back the Warehouse.”

 

I just nodded. I was honestly well past my capacity to take anything more in, to react to anything else. He looked at me a bit oddly, like you look at a dog when you’re not sure whether it’s going to lick your hand or bite you.

 

“You – you’re coming to South Dakota? To the Warehouse?”

 

I shrugged.

 

“Helena wants to go. And I can’t go home for now, because I’ve just killed six fellas and the police will have questions about that, I’m sure. And it’s not like I’ve got anyone to tie me here, so why not?”

 

He looked astonished. Arthur looking astonished is astonishingly funny, it turns out. His eyeballs were practically popping out of his head, and his eyebrows were dancing around like drunken caterpillars. I couldn’t help it. I just started laughing, and after a minute he joined in. I laughed and laughed until I had tears in my eyes, and that pain in my stomach from laughing too hard that made me feel like I was about to have a hernia. I managed to calm myself down after doing several of those elegant laugh-snorts that drive the ladies wild, and wiped my eyes. For want of anything better to do, I put the kettle on. I needed a cup of tea.

 

I brought a teapot and cups on a tray through to the living room, Arthur following behind me with a few packets of biscuits. I put the tray on the coffee table and sat next to Helena. She turned a little to look at me and I smiled at her.

 

“You okay, sunshine?”

 

I nodded. I wasn’t really, I think I was teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown really, but I could hold it together for now. Being near her helped. I slid my arm around her waist, pulled her close. She leaned in to me and I breathed her in.

 

“Are yous two just, like, the cutest wee fuckers ever?” Claudia said, smiling at us.

 

I raised an eyebrow.

 

“I believe we just might be, Miss Donovan.” She beamed a giant smile at me. She was growing on me, that one.

 

I can’t remember much of what was said after that, to be honest. I was just too fucking overwhelmed by it all. I hoped Helena was listening. The gist was, however, that we were to stay there for a few days while arrangements were made to get us all to South Dakota and to sort out everyone’s commitments – Frederic’s position as head honcho, Arthur’s position as – well, whatever he was – the doc’s job in the morgue, Claudia, Pete and Steve’s jobs. I obviously didn’t have much going for me. I got some money – compensation from the British government for my loss - when my family passed, and the house was mine, legally, thanks to my daddy taking out life insurance. I’d been living off my savings for a long time, but I was actually in danger of having to find gainful employment in the near future. I don’t know what kind of mental state I’d been in for those years before the zombies; I’m sure there’s a medical term for it. I’m not really made for sitting around doing nothing, so the fact that I had not done anything – study, work - for the five years after Sam was a pretty clear indication of how lost I really was.

 

I don’t know when I fell asleep, but when I woke up I was on the sofa, under a blanket, with a very sleepy Helena Wells tucked under my arm. She looked up at me and I smiled at her gently. Pete, Claudia and Steve were draped over the other sofa and a recliner that I hadn’t noticed before, all of them snoring. I was, quite frankly, astonished. Not only had I managed to fall asleep in a relatively public place, but I’d slept in a room with other people who weren’t Helena. I looked back down at her.

 

“Did I miss anything?”

 

“No, darling. They left shortly after you fell asleep. Mrs Frederic is sorting out an American passport for you and Visas for Peter, Claudia and I. In the meantime we are instructed to rest and stay out of mischief.” She smiled at me, one side of her mouth quirking a little.

 

“I’ll give her fucking mischief…” I muttered. Chief Superintendent Frederic still had the capacity to wind me up more than anyone. I suppose I was going to have to start calling her Mrs Frederic now, seeing as she wasn’t going to be a copper any more. I still couldn’t get over somebody being brave enough to marry her.

 

“So what now? Where can we find some friggin’ mischief?” I asked Helena, giving her a cheeky grin.

 

“We could find an off-licence? Buy some booze? It’s evening already, we can have some takeout and a few drinks and get to know each other a little better?”

 

“Sounds like a great idea. Is she old enough to drink?” I asked, indicating Claudia.

 

“No, not really. But I’m sure a few drinks won’t do her any harm.”

 

I looked at Helena dubiously. But I was pretty sure we could manage one drunk Claudia between us, if needs be.

 

There was no need. When Helena and I returned with beer and tequila, Claudia shuddered.

 

“Nothing for me, thanks. My parents and my sister were killed by a drunk driver.”

 

Helena and I exchanged looks.

 

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. We don’t have to drink. We can just have takeout and watch a film.”

 

Helena’s voice was low and sympathetic. She made me feel odd, in a good way, when she talked like that. I could really picture her being a mother, just then. 

 

Claudia shook her head.

 

“No, I don’t mind anyone drinking. It’s just a personal thing. I just don’t want any. Yousens go crazy.”

 

Pete, also, did not want any.

 

“I’m an alcoholic.”

 

“No beer for you then, He-Man. Lemonade?”

 

He smiled at the matter-of-fact way I said it, and nodded for a lemonade. We’d ordered some Chinese food, and it arrived just then as I went to the kitchen to pour some lemonade for Lattimer.

 

So there we were, five people attempting to get to know one another, with and without the benefit of alcohol. We played a bit of “I Never”. I raised my eyebrows more than once at the things Ms Wells had done in her time. And she, in turn, raised her eyebrows at me. Then Claudia produced a guitar from her room and we had a bit of an old sing-song. Steve had a surprisingly nice voice. Helena did not. I was a bit envious of Claudia having a guitar; I hadn’t thought to grab mine in my headlong flight from the house. She started singing one of my favourite songs, which suddenly resonated with me when I looked at the woman next to me.

 

_Black is the colour_

_Of my true love’s hair_

_Her lips are like_

_A rose so fair_

_She’s got the sweetest face_

_And the gentlest hands_

_I love the ground_

_Whereon she stands_

 

Irish folk music is a bit strange, and seems to stick to one of two extremes – this type, that was all ‘and I met my love down by the river’ and everything’s wonderful, or the other type, which is a bit more ‘the English stole my land and killed my wife and now I have to boil my shoes for dinner because I have no potatoes and my baby drowned in the river’. Thankfully this song was one of the former, and Helena smiled at me and blushed as I looked at her with my heart in my eyes.

 

Three songs later, and two shots of tequila down (a still very red) Ms Wells’ neck, I found myself unceremoniously hauled out of the room by my collar.

 

“Goodnight, ladies…” Pete’s mocking voice followed us.

 

It was, indeed, a good night. And I did, indeed, love the ground whereon she stood.

 

We stayed at the house, all of us, occasionally venturing out for a walk in the local park, but otherwise staying indoors. There were books and a TV at the house, so we weren’t too bored. It was more exciting than spending time in my house doing the same things. And there was always somebody willing to make a brew, so that was something. And I got to be with Helena all the time, which was pretty much all I wanted right then. And since it was all she seemed to want too, I was pretty happy with all that.

 

I found that I really liked all of them. Pete was daft but he and I seemed to balance each other out in a way. Not in the same way that Helena balanced me out, but there was some sort of bond there. And the same seemed to be true for Steve and Claudia. She was so young and he was probably a lot older, all things considered, because he’d have to be at least twenty-five to be a doctor. (It turned out, in reality, that he was a bit of a Doogie Howser – he was actually only 21, but had qualified early because he was precocious.)

 

The days passed pleasantly. It was unusual for me to be so content in the company of others. I preferred solitude, books and silence. This lot were rowdy, rambunctious and annoying.  But Helena made it all okay, somehow, with her quiet presence, her soft hands, her incredible eyes.

 

We finally talked, one evening in our room, about who she really was. The 1866 thing, the other timelines. I still didn’t really feel like I should believe it, but I couldn’t disbelieve her when she was looking at me so sincerely, her feet tucked under her as she leaned against the headboard.

 

“I’ll give you the short version, for now, since you’ve already had a few surprises recently. I was, as Irene said, born in 1866. I had a fairly normal life except that I didn’t want to be constrained by Victorian society’s idea of what a woman should, or shouldn’t, do. I built things, invented things, and with my brother Charles I wrote a number of novels. Science fiction, primarily. He did most of the writing, really, but the ideas were mine. And I did write some parts.” She trailed off for a moment, thinking. “When I was 23 years old I got pregnant. It was what you now call a one-night stand, and I never saw the father again. I had a daughter, Christina. She was, when I last saw her, five years old. At the time I was working for a secret organisation in London that dealt with unusual items – curiosities, we called them. They’re now known as artefacts. I was on my own, doing inventory in Warehouse 12 when I was visited by an older version of Irene Frederic, who told me what our version told you. The Shadow Regents, the changes to the timeline. She also told me that if I stayed there, in my own time, my daughter would be killed. She couldn’t guarantee that it wouldn’t happen anyway, but she offered me the choice to leave and come here, to this time. She said that she was confident that the timeline would correct things to take care of the rest. So she took me through a portal to modern day London and handed me over to this world’s version of Irene, who sent me to an acting coach. The coach helped me to change my accent, my bearing, and taught me about modern slang and literature, films and books and the like. After that I was left to my own devices. I have been a little lost without my daughter, or indeed anyone else, to tether me. As you so correctly surmised, I have been reckless and stupid, throwing myself into danger, and that led me here – to you. I have been in touch with Irene Frederic now and again but for the most part, I have spent my last year learning about modern life and working as a journalist. So now you know.”

 

I was, by about the second sentence, gaping at her like a fool. Something was tickling at the back of my mind, but whatever it was, it didn’t make itself known – not yet, anyway. What came out of my mouth probably wasn’t the best question to ask, but it’s all I had.

 

“Your daughter? What happened to her?”

 

Her eyes filled.

 

“She…she lived, so far as I can tell, a long and happy life. Charles, my brother, took her in and raised her as his own when I disappeared. She was married and had her own children and died in the 1960s. Isn’t that amazing? That my daughter lived an entire lifetime and died before I even got here?”

 

I nodded, my eyes on hers.

 

“I’m so sorry, love.” I squeezed her hand.

 

A few tears escaped, but she brushed them away.

 

“Thank you, darling.” She smiled at me brightly, but I have seen enough of those smiles on people to know that it was just another mask. I looked at her for a long moment, trying to tell her without words how sorry I was, and finally she looked away.

 

Helena Wells. Wells. Time traveller. There it was – the thing that was tickling back there in the recesses of my brain.

 

“You’re HG Wells.” I said it quietly. It was a statement, not a question, and she just nodded, biting her lip.

 

“Okay,” I said.

 

She raised an eyebrow. I just shrugged. I had done enough dramatic reactions to things recently; I felt a bit like someone had sucked all the emotion out of me by then.

 

Those few days of relative peace passed quickly. On the morning of the fourth day, Mrs Frederic reappeared and said it was time to pack. Helena and I went to our room and began to retrieve our scattered clothing and few belongings.

 

“Do you really want to do this, Myka?” she asked me carefully, as she folded jeans and tops to put in her rucksack. She had very few belongings too, but I wondered if there was a house or a flat out there somewhere in London that held her whole life, like my little house in Belfast held mine.

 

“I want to go with you, Helena. I don’t care much about this whole Warehouse deal. I’m not sure how much of it I really believe. I might as well go, though. I haven’t got anything left for me in Belfast anymore, that’s for sure.”

 

I really didn’t. I’d realised during these few days how dead inside I truly was before – after Sam and before the zombies. (There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.) So whatever was waiting for us out there in the badlands of South Dakota, I figured staying with these people, and with Helena in particular, had to be better than stagnating at home, waiting for something to change.

 

She smiled at me, her hair tied back loosely with a few strands escaping and falling forward over her face. I was madly in love with her, I couldn’t help it. It was all I could do not to blurt it out at her like I had done when I’d had ketamine back in the morgue. I bit my tongue and smiled back, holding in the words that were trying to burst out of me. 


	10. Metronomes and melted wellies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> South Dakota! One sort-of zombie. A face from Myka’s past reappears. Torture and violence. And more Irish folk songs. You’ve been warned.

We made the long journey to South Dakota in a few stages – first, to Heathrow, then to Chicago, then to Sioux Falls. One of Mrs Frederic’s goons, as Arthur referred to them, drove us in what looked to be an armoured van to a B&B outside of Univille. We were told by the expressionless goon that we would be brought to see the Warehouse the following morning. At that point I was so tired I would have agreed to anything if they just let me sleep. I couldn’t sleep on planes. I couldn’t sleep when I could see other people around me, apart from Helena and the gang, that is, as I had so recently discovered. So I’d been awake for the best part of 24 hours, had read 3 books that Helena had bought for me before we boarded our first flight. I’d run out of reading material and tried to watch the inflight movie, but it was the stupidest thing I’d ever seen and if I’d been at the cinema I would have walked out or possibly thrown my popcorn at the screen – some film about adult males who ended up as stepbrothers. Lattimer was laughing his bollocks off at it across the aisle. That probably tells you all you need to know. Helena hadn’t slept well either – I supposed, as a person from the 1800s, she hadn’t travelled on planes very much, and so a bit of nervousness was warranted. We held hands a lot and just about got through it all.

 

When we arrived at the Bed and Breakfast, a beautiful woman of about my age opened the door to us. She was what we in Norn Iron would refer to as mixed race. What races, I didn’t know, but she was gorgeous, with green-grey eyes and hair that was wilder than mine. Racism was a fairly new concept to people in Northern Ireland – we were so busy hating each other that we hadn’t developed an antipathy towards any particular race. But it was a growth industry, racism, and the Chinese community in particular were beginning to be targeted by idiots from both sides of the sectarian divide. I didn’t really get it myself, but then hatred has never come that easily to me. It took murdering my entire family to make me feel it.

 

“Hi, I’m Leena. Welcome to the B&B. You guys must be tired after your trip. Can I get you something to eat or would you prefer to go straight to your rooms?”

 

We muttered something about bed and tea and she smiled at us all as we wilted in the gravel driveway, and showed us to rooms upstairs.

 

“Will you guys be sharing a room?” she asked me and Helena.

 

“Er…yes, if that’s okay with you, sweetheart,” I said, lifting an eyebrow at Helena.

 

“Of course,” she said, smiling at me and at the beautiful innkeeper. Leena smiled back and promised to bring us some tea. She showed us where the bathroom was and we went in to have a very quick shower before returning to the room. Claudia went into the bathroom as we were leaving it, barefoot and half asleep, offering us a quick wave as we passed. When we got back to the room, there was a tray of tea on the bedside table. We drank a cup each, half asleep sitting up on the four poster bed, and then passed out until about 16 hours later. I woke up with Helena’s hair up my nose and my own drool all over my cheek and pillow. Sexy, I know. She was no sexier, for a change, her hair everywhere, her mouth slack and her face all covered in crease marks from the pillow and crusted slabber. I still thought she was beautiful.

 

After a moment, I realised that I couldn’t stay here, wrapped up with her. I was restless and had slept too long and I was on the brink of one of my really bad moods – the ones where I never knew if I wanted to kill someone, kill myself, or just lie still in a dark room with my eyes open like a nutter until it passed. I slid out of bed as quietly as I was able, managing somehow not to wake Helena. I located my bag and changed into my running clothes. I’d always run in the woods in Belfast, trying to keep out of sight of soldiers and anyone else who might have wanted to harass me. I didn’t know where I was going to run, here, but I knew I needed to. If I had any chance of getting out from under this mood, it was going to be by outrunning it.

 

I made my way quietly downstairs and momentarily lost my bearings. There were a lot of doors and I couldn’t quite remember which one was the way out. As I was standing there, slightly at a loss, Leena appeared from nowhere, startling me.

 

“Good morning, Myka,” she said, smiling her dazzling smile. I made an attempt at returning it. I suspect it looked queasy.

 

“Hey, are you okay?” she asked, looking at me in concern. Her hand hovered above my arm but didn’t touch, as if she knew not to. She was looking at me a bit strangely.

 

“Aye, just a bit restless,” I said. “I fancy going out for a run. Where should I go?”

 

She peered at me, still concerned, still with a strange look on her face, that settled into understanding after a moment of her eyes searching mine.

 

“There’s a trail you can follow if you go to the end of the garden. I’ll show you. But first, you should take this in case you get lost.” She produced a metal box from nowhere and handed it to me. It opened out into a little video device, or at least that’s what it looked like, but it looked like something my granny would have watched TV on. Leena showed me where to turn the knob to call someone if I got lost. I mentally shrugged – accepting that there was some sort of Victorian version of Skype wasn’t any harder to believe than anything else I’d been told in the past few days. Something in that thought made the need for flight more pressing and I tucked the metal box into the back pocket of my running shorts. Leena, mercifully, didn’t say any more, just led me outside through French doors and across a patio and large garden. She pointed out the pathway and I gave her a wave before taking off as if the zombie population of Northern Ireland were trying to take a bite out of my arse.

 

After an hour or so I had to stop. I wasn’t used to the heat. It was unbelievable, like a presence I was carrying around with me, pressing down on me even more heavily than my own thoughts. The sweat had long since dried on me and I was beginning to think I might pass out. This running lark was a lot easier when you weren’t in the environmental equivalent of a tumble dryer. I wasn’t too far from the B&B, I didn’t think, but I was beginning to doubt my ability to make it back. I sat down where I was, in the dirt at the edge of the path, and tried to catch my breath through a nose and mouth that were drier than they had ever been. My breath caught, rasping against the dry flesh that had once been a perfectly serviceable throat. Going out running in this climate was stupid, especially since I wasn’t used to it. I might have been safe first thing in the morning, but not now, after the sun had drained all the moisture from the air. Arid was a word I was contemplating fixedly as I tried to breathe. Stupid, I told myself. Running away from yourself. When did that ever help? I dropped my head into my hands, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees.

 

“Ms Bering,” came a voice from the air beside me. I very nearly pissed myself.

 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Frederic!” I coughed, once I’d recovered. “Where the holy Jesus fuck did you come from?” I looked up and there she was, prim in a pink suit, staring down at me disapprovingly. She reached into her bag and pulled out a cold bottle of water, offering it to me wordlessly. She then, to my great surprise, sat next to me on the dry dust at the edge of the pathway.

 

I took a small drink of the water, to wash the dust out of my mouth, and spat it out to my side, where it dried almost instantly. I took a longer drink, savouring the feeling of actual moisture in my mouth, and finally felt like I was able to catch my breath.

 

“Do you feel better?” she asked, quietly.

 

“Not really.”

 

She nodded.

 

“It will take time, Myka. What has happened – none of this was meant to happen. I was given some information by my other self about what was meant to be – what _was_ – in the other timeline, before those men destroyed it. You would be surprised, I think, at who you were, and who Helena was, in those very different circumstances. I used to believe, strongly, that who we are does not fundamentally change, no matter the circumstances. But in your case, and Helena’s, that belief has been challenged somewhat.” She chuckled, dryly.

 

I thought for a moment before speaking.

 

“I hope you won’t consider me too rude, Mrs Frederic, if I say that I haven’t got a fucking clue what you’re talking about.”

 

She laughed at that, a real belly laugh, that for some reason started me off, too.

 

“Should the truth be told, Ms Bering, I’m not sure I do either.”

 

I took a long drink from the bottle, and we lapsed into silence for a moment.

 

“I think what I mean, Myka, is that, no matter what you might think, you are not evil. You are simply a human being driven by circumstances, by pain, to do things that might be considered evil.”

 

I thought about that. I don’t know if I would have thought of myself as evil, exactly. But definitely not good. Not a good person. Good people don’t kill. Good people would rather die than hurt other people. I didn’t know what to say, so I just looked at her, for once not bothering to mask what I felt. The pressure that pushed at my chest, like something was in there trying to get out. The horror at realising my whole family had died for me. The pain of knowing that everything I’d done, everything I’d had done to me, had been the result of the manoeuvrings of someone I’d never met, someone who was pulling the strings of my life without me knowing.

 

Frederic, to my shock, put her hand on my knee, looking at me with sympathy and compassion in her eyes.

 

“I know you have no reason to trust me, Myka, but if I can help you, I will. I promise. They took everything from me too, you know. My Warehouse. They severed me from it, and I have been trying to find my way home since. Perhaps we can help each other.”

 

I took another gulp from the water bottle, and swallowed a few times to dislodge the sudden lump in my throat. I hadn’t expected Frederic to be a human being underneath all the tweed.

 

“Thank you.” I managed, finally.

 

“You are most welcome. Now, I think you’d better get back to the B&B before you get heatstroke.” She patted my knee and stood. I stood too and lifted a hand in a half-wave before moving off down the pathway, back towards the B&B. When I turned my head to see whether she was following, she was gone.

 

I wondered if I had somehow imagined the whole thing. But the bottle of water was still in my hand. I was too weary, suddenly, to care whether Mrs Frederic had some sort of Star Trek Transporter in her handbag. Maybe if I changed the dial on the metal box, I’d end up calling Captain Janeway. Who cared? Not I, at that point, because I’d once again reached my emotional limit. I ran harder to get back to the B&B, suddenly thinking about Helena’s cool hands and beautiful mouth. I needed her.

 

When I opened the door and stepped in, blinking in the dim hallway as my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, I saw Leena waiting for me. I handed her the device she’d give me wordlessly and she smiled.

 

“She’s in the shower,” she said, gently. I nodded and ran upstairs and prayed Helena had left the door open. She had. She turned her head and took in my dishevelled appearance and wild eyes, and wordlessly held her arms open. I dropped my clothes to the floor and stepped in to the shower, allowed her to envelop me in her arms. Suddenly I felt better, quieter. The pressure in my chest eased and I breathed in, sighing it out again as I relaxed into her body.

 

“Are you okay, darling?” she asked, her lips brushing my ear.

 

“I am now,” I breathed.

 

After we’d finished showering, we got dressed and went downstairs. Helena didn’t stray far from my side, watching me with concern in her eyes. I didn’t speak. I didn’t have anything to say, not right then. I felt better, yes, but the mood hadn’t yet lifted, and I still didn’t know what I felt. So I stayed quiet. Leena smiled at us as we entered the kitchen, and shooed us to a table where she dished up piles of eggs and bacon and pancakes and other delicious things. As if summoned by the food, Lattimer, Claudia and Jinks arrived and we all ate. Pete and I had a bit of a silent contest going on as to who could eat the most. I’d been out for a run that morning though, and I was starving. I won. He gave in, groaning, after his sixth pancake. I grinned at him round a mouthful of eggs and bacon. Helena looked from me to Pete with a look of indulgent disgust on her face. I showed her my mouthful of food and suddenly the indulgence disappeared; it was all disgust. She shook her head at me and sipped at her tea daintily. I washed down my last mouthful of food with a cup of steaming coffee. It was the nicest coffee I’d ever had. Leena caught my eye as she passed, winking.

 

“It’s my own blend.”

 

I saluted her with my almost empty mug. She refilled it and swished off into the kitchen.

 

Arthur appeared, glaring at us blearily through red-rimmed eyes.

 

“Good morning, children,” he muttered, grabbing a cup and stumping away into the library. I left him to it; Arthur wasn’t a morning person at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. After another cup of coffee, a driver appeared at the door and we were all summoned to meet Mrs Frederic somewhere. Arthur joined us with a glare and we were driven to an empty place in the middle of nowhere.

 

Mrs Frederic stepped out of a limousine which looked entirely out of place in the middle of this dusty landscape. She nodded to us and started speaking.

 

“You might wonder why we are here, in the middle of nowhere. This is, to put it simply, the closest I can get you to the Warehouse without alerting the Shadow Regents. I have brought some binoculars for you to see it. Arthur has some information for you that he will share with you when you get to the B&B. But here it is.”

 

She pointed us in the right direction and her bodyguard gave us each a pair of binoculars. It didn’t look very impressive from here, this Warehouse. It was a rusty old building sticking out of a rocky bit of hillside in the arsehole of nowhere. There was no way to tell how far back it went into the hillside, not from where we were.

 

“I am hoping that, between you, you will be able to work out a way to enter the Warehouse safely and without alerting the Shadow Regents. In the meantime, please return to the B&B and Arthur will demonstrate some of the artefacts that we have been able to keep.”

 

It was a bit anti-climactic, all in all. But we filed back into the van and back to the B&B and then suddenly it wasn’t so anti-climactic. Arthur demonstrated a sword that could somehow make the bearer invisible. I watched him disappear into thin air and reappear behind me. He then demonstrated another artefact, a hat belonging to some famous hypnotist, which could make you do exactly what your subconscious mind wanted. He tested that one on Pete, who went straight to the kitchen and started eating an apple pie without the benefit of his hands.

 

“I thought I was safest testing that one on him – God only knows what the rest of you have going on in your subconscious minds!” Arthur grumbled. Leena chuckled from the doorway, watching Pete demolish her pie with his face. (And no, that was not a euphemism.)

 

I was convinced, on face value at least, that all this business was true. I was, however, exhausted. I wandered off as they were all talking animatedly about how to get into this Warehouse, and Claudia and Helena began to talk about hacking this and making this device to bypass something or another. It wasn’t my cup of tea. I would go where I was told, shoot who I was told. That was what I was here for, after all. Or at least that’s how it seemed to me. I found an empty room with a piano in it, and Claudia’s guitar was sitting there next to it. I sat down on the piano stool and entertained myself by tuning the guitar. (My eidetic memory came with a little side dish of perfect pitch. Given that I couldn’t really sing, it wasn’t terribly useful to me, but it made listening to other people play music really fucking annoying. It’s very rare that people play and sing perfectly in tune – live, at least.) I played a few songs quietly to myself, humming along with my ear against the body of the guitar, listening to the sweet tone of it. Claudia had chosen a nice instrument. I carried on playing for a while, letting myself sink into a sort of daze. It was probably the only thing I’d ever found, other than reading, that I could lose myself in. I was in a sort of meditative state as I played, picking at the strings and playing delicate rhythms as they came to me. Music was always a comfort, I found. Even in the darkest of moods it can change you, lift you, or knock you down. Right then it was lulling me, carrying me a little further away from the murderous tide of pain that was threatening to dash me into the rocks. I began, after a while, to sing. It was in tune, and that was the best that could be said about my singing voice.

 

_My young love said to me, "My mother won't mind_

_And my father won't slight you for your lack of kind."_

_Then she stepped away from me and this she did say:_

_"It will not be long, love, till our wedding day."_

_She stepped away from me and she moved thru' the fair_

_And fondly I watched her move here and move there._

_And she made her way homeward with one star awake_

_As the swan in the evening moves over the lake._

My voice broke a little on the last line. Five minutes away from Norn Iron and I was singing folk songs about my dead love who was going to take me to the underworld for our wedding, for fuck’s sake. But there was something about that song that always made me feel like I was home. Not home as in Belfast, necessarily. But that sense of home, the smell of my mother’s cooking, the sound of my sister Tracy laughing and annoying me, my daddy looking at me over the rim of his glasses from the corner. The feeling of my mother’s hand pushing back my curls so she could give me a kiss goodnight, the feel of Tracy’s tiny warm body as she fell asleep on my lap in the evening while we were watching television. All of those things that I missed so desperately, even now, so many years later. I felt a few tears welling up and I put the guitar back on its stand and tried to collect myself.

 

“That was beautiful.”

 

I turned my head and wondered how I hadn’t heard her come in. She wasn’t exactly stealthy, my Helena, but she’d managed to sneak past my guard this time. I smiled at her, and she smiled back, her expression turning to concern as she saw the tears in my eyes.

 

“What’s wrong, love?” she asked, walking over to me and putting her arms round my neck.

 

I rested my head on her abdomen for a moment, taking a deep breath to calm myself.

 

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I can’t seem to get a hold of myself today.”

 

She sank to her knees in front of me, resting her hands on the front of my thighs, looking up at me.

 

“Don’t ever apologise for how you feel, Myka. What you’ve been through in your lifetime – it would be enough for a hundred years. It would have killed most people. You are strong. You are allowed to cry.”

 

I didn’t cry, not just then. But I did let her hold me, let her calm surround me for long moments before drawing back and standing, taking her hand.

 

“Let’s go talk to the others, shall we?” I suggested.

 

After a lot of talk and some soldering and messing around with circuitry and computers and gadgets that looked a bit like Leena’s Steampunk Skype box, they had a plan. We were going to go in a side door that Leena would take us to, and Pete and I were going to take out the guards. Helena and Claudia would be dealing with the electronic defences and alarms, and Pete and I would deal with the physical threats. Steve was staying with Claudia and Helena to defend them, and that left Arthur to try and infiltrate some vault that had stuff that he and Mrs Frederic needed inside. They said something about a ribbon, which made no sense to me, but since very little had made sense to me since a certain Sunday morning at Mass, I wasn’t too worried. The plan was made, and all we had to do was rest and get ready.

 

*

 

It went well, at first. We found the side door, with Leena’s help. Pete and I took out the guards with these weird handheld stun gun things – Mrs Frederic’s goons had dropped them off the day before. Arthur went to get the things he needed while Helena and Claudia did their thing with their strange devices, Steve standing guard over them. The two of them would have made a brilliant pair of evil supergeniuses, had they ever felt so moved. (I had been alternately terrified and turned on while watching Helena plotting our little operation.) Pete and I separated for a minute to scope out some movement at the other end of the aisle we were in, when all hell broke loose. I was attacked by four fellas – or rather, four of the _same_ fella, a tall guy with a crooked nose and a long face. He was too strong – _they_ were too strong – and, try as I might, I couldn’t get the upper hand. I was knocked out eventually, after inflicting and receiving injuries too numerous to count. My shoulder would never be the same after one of them dislocated it with strength that I am pretty fucking sure was supernatural in origin.

 

Long story short, I woke up tied to a chair in a dark room with one solitary lightbulb swinging, as they do in the movies. It was like a “how to interrogate like a 1980s action film baddie”. He even had the English accent.

 

That’s when I finally believed in all this artefact and magic shite. When Jimmy McPherson – or rather, James McPherson with a plummy English accent and a slightly older face – still very much like a melted welly – walked out of the shadows and smirked at me. I felt my heart stop for a moment, and I just managed not to vomit on my boots.

 

I stared at my boots for a moment, trying to get my head together. I remembered, bizarrely, the time Sam made fun of me for wearing Dr Marten boots. (In my defence, it was the 90’s.) They were “the most lesbian of all the boots,” he said. I told him to fuck away off if he didn’t want those lesbian boots lodged in his nads. He always liked the fact that I liked women; not in a gross ‘can I watch’ sort of way like so many men, but he liked that we could talk about women and their relative hotness together.  It was strange to think of him, now I knew what he’d done to me, but I still felt some measure of fondness for him.

 

I have nightmares. I have nightmares all the time. Sometimes it’s watching my parents and Tracy wave goodbye, followed by the look on Sister Clare’s face when she told me the news, and the amateur footage of the explosion playing on the Northern Ireland news. But most often my nightmares involve the man who had just walked into the room. That evil, disgusting man, who tried to violate me in a room beside the body of the man I loved.

 

“Good to meet you, Ms Bering,” MacPherson said, smiling at me in a gloating sort of way. His accent was similar to Helena’s, but his voice was so slimy you could practically see it oozing out all over his tweed jacket. He stood there with his hands in his pockets, looking for all the world like a country gentleman who was out for a stroll. I resisted the urge to spit at him. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply, just gave him a filthy look and averted my gaze. My body was shaking in reaction to seeing him; to seeing the ghost of a filthy rapist, now grown old and apparently rich and healthy. Seeing the man alive when I’d killed him with my own two hands made me feel like I was going insane.

 

“I see I will need to leave you to Marcus’ tender mercies for a while longer. Perhaps that will loosen your tongue so that we can discuss how you and your companions came to be here in my Warehouse.”

 

I did spit at him, then. He wiped it off his suit with a handkerchief and sauntered out of the room.

 

Marcus, as the multiple man turned out to be called, was a thoroughly evil fucker. There was only the one of him now, but he was a skilled torturer, I had to give him that. After a while I couldn’t hear my own screams anymore, because my voice gave out. But long before that I had gone away in my mind to that quiet place that I retreated to when the horror of every day became too much. It was cool and dark and if I concentrated I could feel Helena’s hands on my face instead of listening to the noises my body was making. I disconnected from it, the snaps and the squishes, and just waited for it to be over.

 

When MacPherson returned, I was still gone. I could hear him distantly yelling at Marcus, something about needing me to be able to talk. I floated away, disinterested, until he said her name while he was slapping my face. It was like a bucket of ice-cold water. I looked at him, his ugly mug inches away from mine, and swore at him until I was red in the face, threatening him in every way I knew how. If he hurt her…I would die. But only after I’d killed every fucking one of them.

 

“So, it’s like that, is it? I must admit, I had wondered. Even after Yellowstone you two were awfully close. Did you know that, somewhere in another timeline, she actually died for you? Arthur brought her back, but she did it for you. You told me that. Before I cut your throat.” He hissed in my face.

 

I didn’t say anything, just stared at him, my body tense as I fought my restraints with every ounce of strength I had in me. I spat blood on the floor and he stepped back in what could only be described as a prissy manner. I let my muscles relax after a moment. All the straining had accomplished very little, other than to cause me more pain.

 

“I wish to make a bargain with you, Ms Bering. If I allow you and your precious Helena to live, you will go away and never return, never have anything to do with the Warehouse or its business. If you do not agree to this bargain, I will kill Ms Wells in front of you. And then I will find and kill every other member of your so-called team and I will torture and murder them all. Do you understand?”

 

I almost rolled my eyes. I understood the “bargain” he was offering, but I also knew this man. A different incarnation, of course, but the same man nonetheless. As Mrs Frederic had pointed out, people are who they are, underneath it all. He would never let me go. I didn’t know if he really had Helena, but if he did, then he wouldn’t let her go either. I nodded, nonetheless, to see where this would go. If it came to it I would die for her without hesitation. But I would much rather take him with me. Killing another James MacPherson had suddenly become a personal aspiration.

 

He smiled at me, and I returned it uneasily. My left arm was useless, as was my left leg. Marcus had homed in on the old injury on my left knee straight away and had more than likely undone all the good work my surgeon had done so many years before. I’d heard lots of things snap when he twisted my leg the wrong way, with his ridiculous super strength. That was just before I’d gone away to my quiet place – the pain was unbearable. MacPherson nodded at Marcus, who was behind me, and I felt the ropes loosen and then disappear as he cut the restraints away. I lifted my right arm gingerly and flexed the shoulder. I couldn’t move my left.

 

I’d been burned, stabbed, electrocuted. And now he was just going to let me go, of course. My fucking arse.

 

“There is just one more thing, Ms Bering.”

 

There it was.

 

“I believe you encountered my other… self, here in this timeline, and took it upon yourself to kill him. Is that true?”

 

I nodded warily. I wasn’t sure where this was going, but I was very sure I wasn’t going to like it.

 

“That is a shame. I must admit, I do take that rather personally, my dear Myka.” He produced what looked like a riding crop from behind his back. He flexed it, and suddenly I realised that a dislocated shoulder, a thoroughly destroyed knee joint and a few hours of torture weren’t the worst pain in the world. This was. I saw actual stars. I bit my tongue so hard that the gush of blood from it nearly drowned me. My vision dimmed and I choked on my own blood.

 

Thankfully, Helena managed to turn me on my side so that I spat most of it out. Only after she’d taken out MacPherson and Marcus, of course, with a series of balletic martial arts manoeuvres that looked like a dance. Claudia was behind her in the doorway, holding a metronome, and when she put her hand over the pendulum, Marcus’ unconscious body gave a jump in the air and then stilled.

 

You know when you’re having a dream, and you know that you’re having a dream, but you can’t wake up? This felt like that, but sort of in reverse. Because the things that were happening felt like they _should_ have been in a dream. And I would have much rather been dreaming it than living it. These magical, horrific objects, a man who could be killed with a metronome, a dead man risen to take revenge on his killer – it was a bit like a sci-fi movie that someone dreamed up while they were sniffing glue. I think that’s when I did slide into a dream, to be honest. Because I’m pretty sure that Helena wouldn’t have stabbed MacPherson to death while he was unconscious. Right? The idea that she would do something like that, stab a man repeatedly, covering herself in his blood, having to be pulled away by a wee ginger teenager, that wouldn’t ever happen in real life, right?

 

I never got a straight answer to that – whether it was a fever dream or a vision or what – but I woke approximately 24 hours later, I’m told, after some pretty serious trauma and orthopaedic surgery. My leg wasn’t going to be much use for a few months; that was for sure. I was so high when I woke that I thought my Mummy and Daddy and Tracy were at my bedside. I cried in someone’s arms, telling my mother how much I missed her, cried my heart out to my sister and even my father, a man who I was more frightened of than anything else. I cried my heart out and I talked to them and I still don’t know who was really there because none of them will tell me. It’s nice, really, that they don’t want me to feel embarrassed. But I just want to thank them, that’s all. Because somehow when I woke up the next time I felt lighter. My grief wasn’t so crushing.

 

When I woke up the second time, Leena was with me. She said the rest of them were finishing what we’d started. I was too tired to ask what that meant, so I let myself be pulled back under as Leena sat next to me, her hand resting on top of mine, her presence soothing and quiet.

 

The third time I woke up, Dr Calder was there.

 

“Good morning, Myka. How do you feel?” she asked, smiling.

 

“Like I’ve been tortured,” I said, my tongue thick and painful.

 

She laughed. She was so graceful. I hoped I would be half as graceful when I was her age.

 

“My age? Why, Myka, that’s not a very nice thing to say…” she scolded playfully, laughing to herself.

 

“Aw for fuck’s sake…did you give me ketamine again?” I asked, groaning.

 

“Just a little,” she said, laughing again.

 

I tried to bite my tongue to stop myself saying anything ridiculous, but realised immediately what a bad idea that was. The bastard thing had _stitches_ in it. I concentrated hard and managed not to say anything too mortifying, though.

 

“Is Helena okay?” I half-whispered, not sure I wanted to know the answer.

 

“She’s fine, Myka. She saved your life, you know. She cares a lot about you.” Dr Calder looked fond, somehow. Apparently Helena had made an impression, there.

 

“Where is she?”

 

“They’re on a mission, to finish what you started, or so I’ve been told. From what I hear, they have been successful so far. I’m still waiting to hear from Arthur.”

 

“They have been entirely successful, I am pleased to say,” came a sonorous voice from the doorway. Mrs Frederic, looking particularly imposing and almost regal, waltzed her way in with a bit more swagger than usual. She looked different, somehow.

 

“What happened?” I asked, the words coming out thick and stupid.

 

“They managed to find and neutralise the other Shadow Regents using an artefact. They have been Bronzed, and everything is as it should be.” Mrs Frederic said, almost smugly.

 

“What does that mean? Bronzed?”

 

She sat down on the chair next to Dr Calder and began to explain. It was some sort of suspended animation, to neutralise people who posed particularly nasty threats. Genghis Khan was in there, and some others whose names I didn’t recognise. They’d been Bronzed before they could complete their world-ending plans, apparently, so the world would never know their names. And no-one would ever know the names Walter Sykes, Paracelsus, or Bennett Sutton either. (Well, Paracelsus, the world might know, but apparently only because he was the father of toxicology a couple of centuries before he’d tried to take over the world. Bully for him. I’d never fucking heard of him.) James MacPherson was dead, Mrs Frederic said, but she didn’t elaborate on the how or when. Marcus Diamond worked for Sykes, apparently, and had once been a good man, but was brought back from death by the metronome that I saw Claudia with before I blacked out. The metronome made him evil somehow, and then he’d started using another artefact that made him able to multiply himself, which caused a serious personality disorder. And the rest is history. Well, violence and torture, but still history.

 

“So, Ms Bering, what are your thoughts on staying here? I would like you to work for me, here in South Dakota, at the Warehouse. You don’t have to answer immediately. I am sure you will want to consult with Ms Wells and perhaps Mr Lattimer? In any case, think it over. I await your answer.” And with that Mrs Frederic swept out of the room, and Dr Calder followed.

 

I slept again for a while, and when I woke up she was there, my Helena, holding my hand.

 

“We have to stop meeting like this,” I said, before she could say it. She smiled.

 

“Good morning, sunshine.” She leaned over and kissed me extremely gently.

 

“Good morning, yourself. Where have you been, gorgeous?” I asked, grinning.

 

“Just finishing off your terribly shoddy work,” she said, affecting her snootiest accent and lifting her nose in the air.

 

“Shoddy work, my arse. I had them right where I wanted them,” I said, scoffing. Her eyes bugged out in disbelief.

 

“Are you serious?” she asked, mouth hanging open.

 

I looked at her with a very sober expression for a moment, tapping my index finger on my lip.

 

“I had a plan, which you totally interrupted. I was about to stun them all with my brilliance, and you came in and fucked it all up,” I said, face straight.

 

“You are such a bloody liar, Myka. He was about to torture you to death. I saved your life, you…”

 

She trailed off as she saw the sly grin I was trying to hide behind my hand.

 

“You’re winding me up. You little bollocks! Honestly, I nearly believed you!” She looked outraged, but she was smiling a little.

 

“Gotcha, Wells,” I said. We sat there for ages, just smiling and holding hands. It was nice.

 

“Thank you,” I said quietly, looking away from her as I remembered that room, MacPherson – all of it. “You saved me.”

 

She gently lifted my chin so that I would meet her eyes.

 

“I owed you at least one, didn’t I, love?” she said, grinning at me.

 

“Oh, it’s _love_ now, is it?” I said, mockingly but with a little smile to let her know I was messing.

 

“Yes.” She said it perfectly seriously, meeting my eyes with her beautiful brown ones, somehow darker and brighter than they’d ever been before.

 

“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say, apart from the obvious, that I was mad for her, that I’d die for her, that I’d do anything for her. I couldn’t look away, and I was, once again, crying.

 

“It’s okay, Myka. You don’t have to say anything. I love you.” She leaned over and kissed me gently, cupping my face gently, rubbing her thumb across my jaw.

 

I didn’t say anything, not then. But I did a million times after that.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I didn’t get this up last week. I think there will be two more parts to this. Possibly. Myka recuperates from her injuries, deals with a hyperactive Helena and the Warehouse gets knocked into shape. Trigger warning - Obviously this fic deals with terrorism, and given recent events it might be a difficult subject for some.

We decided to stay, for a while, without making a commitment to this Warehouse business. Because I needed time to rest and recuperate, and once that was done with, we needed to know whether we really wanted to be involved in this world of endless wonder, as Mrs Frederic called it. So far as I could tell, however, all it had caused was horror and death and pain. I started talking to a therapist on the insistence of Mrs Frederic, a tiny little woman by the name of Abigail, who I liked a lot. She had a sly sense of humour and she never judged me, not even when I told her about the worst things I had done. Things I hadn’t even told Helena. Things I didn’t think I’d ever be able to tell Helena.

 

We were talking, one day, about my “work” with the IRA, before Sam had been caught out and MacPherson made me kill him. She’d asked me about the stuff I’d done, how I felt about it all.

 

“If you’re asking me am I ashamed, the answer is yes. I murdered people, just for revenge. I took out my own pain on those people. And they weren’t even the ones who were responsible. I mostly killed Loyalist paramilitary leaders. I think that was probably a public service in a way, but I still hurt people, innocent people, in doing that. Their families didn’t choose what their husbands or fathers or brothers did. I thought I had the right. I thought I was doing what was right. But now all I can see when I think about it all is Tracy’s face. She would have been so sickened. My mummy – she would have cried her heart out, to see me like that. After all she taught us – everything she said to us – I went out and became exactly what she hated. A killer.”

 

There was a beat of silence. I looked up for a moment and Abigail was looking at me shrewdly, but not like she was sickened or judging or anything. Just like she was trying to work something out.

 

“What?” I asked, dreading the answer.

 

“You are ashamed. Really ashamed. Do you think the Myka of 10 years ago would have been ashamed?”

 

I shook my head.

 

“Then you’ve become someone else. You were cold and set on revenge, and now you’re not. You’re sorry for what you did. That means something.”

 

I shrugged.

 

“It might mean something here, to you and to me. But I doubt it would mean anything to any of the families I destroyed.”

 

“Maybe not. But it still means something, Myka. It means you’re not that person anymore. You’re not that cold killer. You are a human being, a flawed human being. Without Sam whispering in your ear, who knows whether you would have even joined up? He was the reason you did, right?”

 

I nodded.

 

“Well then. I think we can both agree that you weren’t entirely responsible for where that decision took you. And since your family were murdered in the first place to send you off the rails, it’s not really all your fault, Myka. They did that, the Shadow Regents did that. They killed your parents, and Tracy, and countless others, all in the pursuit of making you into the kind of person that wouldn’t end up here, at the Warehouse, helping people. And yet here you are.”

 

I shrugged again. I still didn’t see that it made a huge difference. Sure, I had been goaded, encouraged to end up as a cold-hearted murderer. But that didn’t mean I _had_ to do it. I’d made those choices, choices that had ended up with countless people lying dead on cold concrete or in shallow graves in the countryside of South Armagh. (There were mock road signs in South Armagh that said “Sniper at work,” with a silhouette of a man with a gun. I’d always found them really funny; that probably tells you all you need to know about my state of mind back then.)

 

“I’m responsible for my own choices, Abigail,” I said shortly.

 

“Yes, I completely agree,” she said, amiably as ever. “But you have to acknowledge that what happens to us has an effect on how we behave. For example, I lost a patient, which led to me becoming a photographer instead of carrying on with my practice. Which then led me here, to this bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere, where I’m doing the most fulfilling work I’ve ever done. I think that you have to let that truth sink in a little, Myka. Look at Helena. She made a decision, an unselfish decision, to save her daughter’s life. But she nearly got herself killed because she missed her daughter - she missed her family back in 1890-whatever. She wouldn’t have done any of that, behaved so recklessly, without losing Christina and her family in the way she did. Artie – he did terrible things, too, in order to try and help you stay safe. We do what we have to, sometimes. Sometimes we have to become someone else, to see who we were – to get back to the person we were.”

 

That sounded like a quotation, to me. I couldn’t really think, at that moment, who she was quoting. I had this big ball of turmoil in my guts, this guilt that was eating me alive. Predictably enough I decided to try outrunning it – or rather, given my condition, outlimping it. I excused myself from Abigail’s knowing eyes, and went to change, avoiding the others on my way out. I went and lost myself in the Badlands again, this time walking as fast as I could manage – well, hopping. This time I was a bit safer; I had my Farnsworth and some water and an energy bar, and even a mobile phone. I had no idea how long I’d been out for when Helena called me on the Farnsworth and I picked it up, not wanting to worry her.

 

“Are you okay, darling?” she asked, her face looking silly and adorable on the weird fish-eye screen.

 

“Yeah,” I said, out of breath and bending over, one hand on my right knee, trying to catch up with myself. The pain in my left leg was intense, but it was somehow keeping me grounded. I felt I deserved it.

 

“You don’t look it,” she said, her face all screwed up in concern. She still looked beautiful.

 

“I’m fine,” I said, looking at her while squinting against the insanely hot and bright sun. I was going to burn and then peel, very unattractively. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to be Irish in the original timeline or whatever, but I certainly had the skin for it. Pale wasn’t the word. And it did _not_ react well to the sun.

 

“Are you sure? Do you need us to come and find you?” Pete was behind her then, peering at me concernedly.

 

“No, I’m fine. I’m heading back; I’ll be there soon.”

 

I closed the Farnsworth and started making my way back to the B&B. By the time I got there they were all waiting for me at the dining table, with expressions ranging from mild concern (Steve) to almost panicking (Helena). I stopped and stared at them.

 

“What’s all this?” I asked, confused, as I pulled out my earbuds. Metal and grunge was great for stopping thoughts when your brain won’t shut up.

 

“We were worried. You’ve been gone for nearly four hours,” Helena said, and as I looked round, I realised that they must have thought I’d done something stupid like flung myself into a canyon like Wile E Coyote. I’d only done something mildly stupid – walking myself half to death, probably further injuring my knee and giving myself sunstroke.

 

“Sorry. I just needed to clear my head,” I said, shrugging.

 

“Abigail said we should watch you, make sure you’re okay,” Claudia blurted, and I smiled at her reassuringly.

 

“I’m fine, ginger. Don’t worry about me, love, okay?”

 

She smiled and nodded, and I felt good that I could at least reassure one of them that I wasn’t about to go doo-lally. Arthur shifted in that way of his, like a grumpy walrus, and started telling everyone to go and do what they were paid to do (whatever that was), instead of sitting around. They all dispersed quick enough, and it was just me and Helena, then.

 

“I thought you… I was worried, Myka,” she said, caught somewhere between angry and relieved.

 

“I’m sorry, love. I just… I needed some time, just to get my head showered.”

 

She shook her head, taking a deep breath.

 

“I understand, darling. But you can’t scare me like that. You shouldn’t even be walking on that leg. Even Abigail was worried.”

 

I thought about that for a moment. Abigail seemed like she had her head screwed on, and she didn’t seem the type to panic too much. But then she had lost a patient, so maybe she was just a bit more cautious in case it happened again.

 

“I’m sorry, Helena. I… we were talking about some stuff, and I just needed to walk it off, you know?” I said, shifting a bit uncomfortably as my muscles started to cool and stiffen.

 

“Come on then,” she said, switching from angry to fussy. “Let’s get you into a hot shower.”

 

The hot shower helped the muscles and my bad knee, but burned against the areas of my skin that had been over exposed to the sun. I started feeling a bit hot and cold, like you do when you’re sunburned, and Helena insisted that I have dinner upstairs in our room while she fussed over me, checking my temperature and rubbing cold lotion into my skin to soothe the sunburn, and making me take painkillers to keep the pain in my knee at bay. I managed to get some sleep, with her close, as always, watching me and taking care of me in a way that I had never thought I would allow, let alone actually want.

 

After a few days I started to come round, to come out of that awful place in my mind. Helena helped a lot, but it was also Pete, cajoling me into watching TV with him or talking about stupid stuff like football and girls that he fancied, that helped me shake it off a little bit. And Claudia, with her silliness and daft excitement about music and video games and all that. Things started to seem a bit more normal, like life was slowly coming back into colour from greyscale. That was how I always felt when I thought about those days at home, about what I’d done – like something had leached all the colour out of the world and left me in a perpetual greyscape that ran from horizon to horizon.

 

Helena and I were still “figuring things out”, as Steve put it, with regards to our relationship, who we were to each other. We had only met a matter of weeks before, and suddenly we were thrust into this brand new life together, trying to make sense of the impossible and of each other. We had plenty of time, all the time in the world really, to work out if this thing between us was a forever kind of thing or not. It felt that way to me, most of the time. She was amazing. But she was also, I discovered, very, very fucking annoying. Like, have you ever seen a cat when they’ve got something stuck in their throat and they’re trying to get it out? Helena could be, at times, the thing stuck in the cat’s throat. And I was the cat. The woman was fucking hyper, bouncing off the walls at 3 in the morning talking about inventing a real invisibility cloak. I very nearly fucking brained her.

 

“There is a sword that makes you invisible in the Warehouse, Helena, for fuck’s sake. What is the matter with you? Did you eat Arthur’s biscuits again? You know, hyperactivity is a real thing…”

 

I might as well have saved my breath. In the end I limped over and opened the door, yelling for Claudia, who came running upstairs a minute later as if the hounds of hell were on her heels.

 

“Jesus, Myka, what’s the…AAAAGGH!” She stopped dead and put her hands over her eyes theatrically.

 

The squealing was related to the fact that I was in the buff, I imagine. I snorted at her impatiently. Had she never seen a woman in the nip before?

 

“Claudia, take her away before I throttle her, okay? She’s wittering on about invisibility cloaks and I haven’t the energy for it. You can handle that, can’t you?” I said, trying to make my voice sweet and entreating.

 

“For fuck’s sake, Myka. You know I can’t resist invisibility cloaks. Come on Helena, before she murders you. She would, you know.” She pulled Helena along behind her, one hand still over her eyes, and I turned back to go into my room. Before I could, Pete’s door opened opposite.

 

“Looking good, She-Ra,” he said, waggling his eyebrows and topping it off with a wolf whistle.

 

“I wonder would you ever fuck away off, Lattimer.” I slammed the door behind me.

 

*

 

Things were better, a few months later. I could walk nearly without limping. Nearly. And Helena and Claudia had fallen into a nice routine of inventing things and messing with artefacts on their own time. That meant that our time together, mine and Helena’s, that is, was mercifully void of crazy mumblings about invisibility cloaks and drones that would fly to Mars and the like.

 

It’s hard to keep a relationship going, it turns out, when the start of it has been so intense and crazy. So the sex part, while still extremely exciting, was less intense than it had been at the beginning, when everything was life and death. It was the other parts that made it something that might last. The way that she always made me a cup of tea as soon as I woke up. Or the way that we could sit for hours discussing books and films. (She always made fun of the way I said film. Fil-um. What’s wrong with that?) Or the way we could sit doing nothing at all, not talking, just being together. How she was interested in everything, how everything worked. Normal things like toasters and the kettle. But also chairs, and hinges, and zips. Everything. She took apart anything that interested her, and while it drove me absolutely up the wall some days, it also thrilled me to watch the way her mind worked, and the way her hands worked, elegant and long fingered and sure.

 

She was interested in my mind, too. She listened to everything I had to say, and she was fascinated when she realised that I had an eidetic memory. And perfect pitch. She tested it all the time, as if she couldn’t believe that my brain could do the same thing as a simple handheld guitar tuner.

 

“Sing an E,” she would say, eyes narrowing. I would comply, and she would pull a tuner out of her pocket and check it, testing me. I was always right on the money, and it frustrated her intensely. She hated that I could do that and she couldn’t. (And she really, _really_ couldn’t. She couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.) She also hated the fact that I could recite from a page I’d seen once without consulting the book; that I didn’t need to have the physical text to re-read something. For someone with an intellect like hers, it must have been endlessly frustrating for someone else to have skills that she didn’t possess; skills that were innate and couldn’t be learned.

 

We were learning little things about each other, and to be honest, each little thing I learned about her pushed me a little bit deeper. I loved her, I knew that. I just didn’t realise how much until something small would happen and it would flood through me, this feeling, stealing my breath away.

 

She followed me sometimes when she knew I was going to sneak off to find Claudia’s guitar and play. She would sit somewhere nearby and listen. I didn’t realise for days, and I might not have done for days more, except that I heard her trip over something as I got up to leave the room one afternoon. I found her in the hallway outside the room, having landed on her arse trying to get away before I got there. I just offered her a hand up and didn’t say anything. I thought about it for a few days before I said anything. Playing the guitar was something private, something that made me feel a bit more centred; it always had. But she clearly liked listening, and I couldn’t really see why that was a bad thing. So the next time I sneaked off, I grabbed the book she was reading in one hand and took her hand in mine, silently urging her to come with me. I sat her down on a squashy armchair near the piano, handed her the book, and proceeded to ignore her and play whatever came to mind, losing myself in the music. When I looked up, after a while, she had pulled her legs up underneath her and was reading her book, one hand resting under her head. She looked over at me and smiled, and then carried on reading. After a while, that became a routine for us, a few times a week. In fact, she began to usher me into the little music room when she thought I was tense. It was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

 

Claudia spent a lot of time with Helena, talking about gadgets and technology and computer hacking, but she also spent a lot of time just sitting with me. No matter what I was doing, she would just come and sit nearby. We didn’t ever talk much, we’d just sit. And I would watch television or read a book, and sometimes she would too, but mostly we would just sit in silence. Sometimes she would snuggle up to me, nudging my arm up with her head so I’d lift it and put it round her. I asked her, once, why she sought me out.

 

“I dunno. You just – since I met you – you’re the only one who makes me feel safe. Like I know nothing will ever happen to me when I’m with you. I haven’t felt like that since my parents passed. Do you know what I mean?”

 

I looked at her and nodded. I did understand. I hadn’t felt safe since my parents died. The only person who did that for me was Helena. I didn’t think Claudia had the hots for me or anything, I reckoned it was much more of a big sister sort of thing, but I was glad that she felt safe with someone. Everyone should get to have that.

 

Pete and I got to know each other a lot better. Once my leg was strong enough, we went out for short runs together. We talked a lot, talked about growing up in Belfast, growing up during the Troubles, losing people. He’d loved his father very much; the man was a hero, by the sounds of it. He’d saved a load of people from a burning building that had been bombed and an IRA sniper shot him because he was a policeman. It filled me with shame that something like that had happened to such a good man. And that I’d later become like the man or woman that killed him. But Pete said he understood where I’d come from, why I had done the things I’d done. I wasn’t sure I did.

 

After over two months of recovery, we went to work, all of us. We trained in the Warehouse, getting used to the artefacts, where they were supposed to be, and how they sometimes interacted with each other. Helena had a really deep bond with this place, for some reason. It was like it spoke to her. Claudia, too, but to a lesser degree. They were always talking about smelling apples. I never smelled anything except for dust and sometimes Pete’s epic farts. He was a terrible one for overeating. I didn’t get why he wasn’t a big fat shite, to be honest. He was always stuffing his face with something fatty and disgusting. Not that I was bothered about fatty food; I grew up in Northern Ireland, for Christ’s sake. But I tried to keep myself to three meals a day. He seemed to have one meal a day – one that never actually ended.

 

I found myself, for some reason, in a kind of a leadership position. Nothing was ever said, it wasn’t official, but everyone seemed to unconsciously turn to me whenever there was a decision to be made. Arthur was in charge, but everyone seemed to turn to me for reassurance, decisions. It was strange and I wasn’t sure what had prompted it. They just seemed to follow my lead. And when there was a problem, like when Claudia and Pete had a fight over Mario Kart that ended up with tears on one side and manly histrionics on the other, I was the one who had to smooth things over. Helena was no good when it came to stuff like that; she was too emotional. Apparently there was something to do with the illicit usage of green shells that were wild cards and that was the only reason that Claudia won, Pete said. I calmed him down with a shitload of biscuits and some horrible sugary drink called cream soda. More like barf soda, because that’s nearly what I did when I tried it. Claudia was still wittering on about how all was fair in love and Mario Kart, and I made her apologise to Pete. And I made Pete get a grip too. He just didn’t like losing to a 16 year old girl when he was supposed to be a grown up “bad-ass” copper. I told the lot of them that if there were any more fights about Mario Kart or any other game then the console would be going into my room under lock and key until everybody involved grew up. When the two of them agreed, shamefaced, I stalked off into the kitchen for a brew, and was really fucking pissed off to find Steve, Helena and Leena hiding in the kitchen giggling.

 

“Were yousens hiding in here the whole time?” I asked, glaring at the three of them. That only set them off giggling harder, so I made my tea and stormed off in a huff, fucked off with the lot of them. Helena came upstairs to our bedroom a while later and apologised, making it up to me in her own special way. It was lucky, I told her later, that she had such a talented mouth, or else I would never have forgiven her for leaving me with those two eejits. She just smirked at me, that sexy, infuriating smirk that I had come to love so much.

 

Arthur and I dealt with the paperwork, and tidying up the mess that these Shadow Regent people had made of the Warehouse. The place had paper everywhere, and the inventory system was decades old. Everything was covered in dust, and it was nearly impossible sometimes to work out what was supposed to be where. I rolled up my sleeves and figured out a filing system. I’d done some secretarial-type courses alongside my academic ones at school, and with that and my memory I was able to start working out how to track where things were. Arthur was a bit old-fashioned, but I eventually managed to persuade him to let Claudia at the computer system in the Warehouse. She was doing all sorts of complicated things and writing programs, and Helena was building some sort of pressure pad linked to an electronic display, so that you could weigh in an artefact and if it was removed the computer would immediately know. I let them do their thing. I knew Helena well enough to know that she was frighteningly competent with gadgets and that she wasn’t afraid to admit when she didn’t know something. To me, that’s always a sign of competence – when someone is confident enough to say they don’t know.

 

After a few weeks of hard work, Arthur was happy with the new system, and while it would be months before all the new pressure pads and displays were working, one section of the Warehouse was already set up – the section with some of the most disturbing artefacts. The Dark Vault, they called it. I went in there to install a few of the pressure pads – after Helena had shown me 8 times how to do it and made me repeat it another 4 times before she would believe me – and the fucking place scared the shit out of me. There were so many fucking evil things in there, I could almost understand why people sometimes went batshit crazy and tried to kill everyone in the world. I mean, if people were fucking evil enough for their emotions alone to create something that would burn children alive, or make people murder their parents, then what was the bastard point of it all? It took me a day or two to get myself past that feeling. Being in the Dark Vault brought me back to the dark years I’d spent at home, the things I’d done – the people I’d hurt. Without the people around me, Helena and Leena especially, I don’t know if I’d have come through it intact. But it turned out that, even though I found the lot of them incredibly annoying at times, they were also great at taking my mind off my particular brand of crazy. When Arthur drove me back to the B&B that night, Helena kept giving me the side-eye at dinner. I don’t know what my face looked like, but I suspect it wasn’t good. She wandered off to chat to Claudia about something and the next thing I knew we were having a lively game of Trivial Pursuit that Claudia had apparently brought with her from home. It was her favourite game, she said. Please, play with us, Myka, she said. And she gave me this sad wee pout that reminded me of Tracy, so I gave in, even though I wanted to go outside and run and keep running until the world disappeared.

 

We won the game, Helena and I. Because I remember everything, and because she’s a thousand years old, or whatever. (She hates it when I say that, and gets that sexy, smouldering, predatory look on her face that I love so much. And she asks why I wind her up…) Claudia and Pete were pissed off that they didn’t win, but Steve and Leena were stoic and calm and chilled as always. That night I felt a bit like I was a part of a family again. It was something I don’t think I’d ever expected to experience again, and it helped to break me out of the despair I was falling into after seeing what was in the Dark Vault.

 

That night when we went to bed, Helena slid under the covers behind me, wrapped me up in her arms and kissed my temple and told me she loved me. I was still wound up, still feeling like there was no point to continuing, to trying. Her arms around me grounded me, made me feel quiet and still and loved. I turned in her arms and kissed her and then I said it back for the first time.

 

“I love you, Helena.”

 

And do you know what she said?

 

“I know, darling.”

 

I knew I should never have let her watch Star Wars. Even in the dark I could tell she was smirking. I kissed it right off her face.


	12. Time Machines and magic hammers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the final part of this fic, bar a very small epilogue which I will hopefully post very soon. Thank you to all of you who took the time to read and encourage me. Yousens are awesome.

* * *

We had four weeks of Secret Service training after we were sufficiently acclimatised to the Warehouse. Frederic had contrived to get us all American passports somehow, and she sent a dialect coach to the B&B for those months while I was healing to soften up our flat Norn Irish dialect; I could do a generic American accent well enough to suit the fella (since my daddy was American that wasn’t really surprising), so I didn’t have to stay for all the sessions, but Claudia and Pete struggled with it, as did Helena. Her attempt at an American accent was terrible. I laughed at her so hard that she almost Tesla’d me one morning. We decided, eventually, that we would tell people that she had dual nationality and was born in the US, grew up in the UK. Pete, Steve and I had the least trouble with the actual Secret Service training. It was similar to the training I had when I was in the Middle East, this training that we underwent in Washington. It was strange to think that paramilitary and military organisations trained their people so similarly. Helena was incredibly proficient at the hand-to-hand combat, which was no surprise to me after she’d taken out MacPherson and Marcus Diamond so easily. I was okay with that part, less elegant and ninja-like than Helena, but I got the job done. Helena really struggled with the firearms. She hated even to touch them. But finally we were all declared by Mrs Frederic to have passed the training (incredibly abbreviated though it was; Secret Service training was usually 17 weeks, as I later learned) and we were given our badges and guns and sent back to the Warehouse. I don’t know exactly what pull Frederic had, but she got things done, I’d give her that. Claudia was incredibly pleased to see us returning; I suspect Arthur had been driving the poor girl up the wall. She was too young to be doing Secret Service training, and was, for now, tech support only.

 

The first artefact retrieval we did was a complete and utter fuck up – at least at the beginning. Pete was playing cowboy, he wouldn’t listen to me, and I ended up hitting him a dig in the balls. But eventually we got what we were after – a compact that had once belonged to Lizzy Borden, she of the forty whacks – and we brought it back to the Warehouse, to an anxious and waiting team. Arthur beamed at me when I came through the umbilicus into the Warehouse office and held up the static bag that held the compact. I had retrieved it by knocking out a man who was a foot taller than me and must have weighed at least twice what I do. I had used a simple Kenpo move that Helena taught me, and I thanked God loudly when it worked and he hit the floor. I had, for a moment, feared that this was going to be another Marcus Diamond-type deal, because the fella was so strong that I felt like I was fighting the Hulk.

 

“Hey,” Helena said, softly, her eyes holding mine as she approached me. “I missed you.” She traced the bruise on my face with one fingertip. I had a spectacular black eye.

 

“I missed you too, sweetheart,” I whispered, as I gravitated towards her. My arms went round her waist almost of their own volition. She put hers round my neck and then leaned up a little to kiss me.

 

I noticed, over her shoulder, that the others were melting away, disappearing off into the Warehouse or into Arthur’s office to give us privacy. I was glad that no-one made an issue of this; of us. It was the thing holding me together, this thing with Helena. She was the centre of it all, for me. I leaned down again and kissed her, this time a little more insistently, my tongue playing with hers, my hands sliding up her sides. She was wearing the blue shirt and black waistcoat that I liked so much. She started to play with my hair, her fingers tangling in my curls, and when she pulled it I groaned a little bit and pulled myself away.

 

“Don’t start something you don’t intend to finish, my love,” I said, chiding her.

 

“Who says I don’t want to finish it?” she whispered, grabbing my hair again and kissing me in a way that let me know she really meant business.

 

“Okay love, back to the B&B we go,” I said. I stuck my head into Arthur’s office, telling him we were going, and he gave me an eyebrow and then waved me off.

 

Sometimes absence makes the heart grow fonder. Sometimes it just makes you shag like bunnies on Viagra. But that saying will probably never catch on.

 

Helena’s first retrieval with Steve was a set of boxing gloves that made people want to fight everyone round them. Luckily, she Kenpo-ed the shite out of the lad that had ended up with the gloves, and snagged the gloves themselves without much trouble. Steve told me about it afterwards – he pretty much just stood there with a static bag and picked up the gloves once Helena was done. He had an expression of complete awe on his face when he talked about it. I think he slipped a bit on the Kinsey scale that day – Helena had a way of doing that to people.

 

Things had been going well, I suppose. The Warehouse was well in hand, we were starting to retrieve some of the more dangerous objects that these Shadow Regents had sold, and things with Helena were going extremely well. Then I saw the HG Wells section and it all crumbled down around me. I found the remains of the time machine that had caused all of this devastation, and I brooded for days. I also found some remarkably complete plans for the working version of the machine that Paracelsus had used to change the timeline. And just like that, a worm of an idea grew in my brain. I could go back. I could fix it all. I could bring my family back. Tracy could live. I would never be twisted enough to join the paramilitaries and become a dead-eyed killer.

 

I wasn’t an engineer. I wasn’t a mechanic. But I could use my hands and I had a perfect memory. I began sneaking off when the others were on retrievals, and I followed the plans the crazy old man had written to the letter. I learned from the internet how to solder, how to weld, how to work metal, how to set up different kinds of circuitry. I worked and I worked and Helena watched me worriedly.

 

“Is everything okay, Myka?” she would ask.

 

“Of course.” I smiled, but I knew it didn’t reach my eyes.

 

We hardly ever made love, after I’d found the HG Wells section. I was too focused, always working on the machine, either in reality or in my head. I stopped talking to Abigail. I went for longer and longer runs, my body more used to the climate now. And I dreamed – I dreamed of a different life, where Helena could stay with her little girl and live a happy life, and I would grow up with a family that loved me and I could be worth something. I wouldn’t have to live with this weight of guilt and darkness on me all the time. She was better off, my Helena, because I wasn’t worthy of someone like her. But now I could fix it all and none of us would ever know what a nightmare our lives had become.

 

After weeks of clandestine work, I finished it. I had used all manner of artefacts to put the machine together, and had bypassed all of the security we’d spent painstaking hours over to conceal it. But somehow, she still found me.

 

I was standing over my machine, looking at the section of the time machine that looked like a flux capacitor, when I heard a soft noise behind me.

 

“So this is where you’ve been disappearing to.”

 

Her voice was flat, disappointed.

 

“I…”

 

I couldn’t say anything. It was clear what I was doing. I sat on the floor, leaning against the machine. After a moment of staring at me, her arms crossed, she came to sit beside me.

 

“What were you going to do? Just go in there, remake everything to your liking? Take away everything we’ve built here? Take away my _choice_ , Myka?”

 

I just looked at her. She knew why I was doing this, didn’t she? She understood.  

 

“If I fix it, you could get to stay with your daughter. Isn’t that what you want?”

 

“Myka. Why on earth do you think I agreed to come here in the first place? My daughter _died_ in the other timeline. And it wasn’t the Shadow Regents, nor was it an artefact. It was a robbery. Mrs Frederic showed me the newspaper articles. A random act of violence, and my daughter died. They couldn’t be sure that if I left, she would live, but they thought it was possible. And it was. She lived. I would have loved to see her grow up, Myka. But leaving her, though it tore me apart, was the right decision. Do you know what happened to me – the other me - when Christina was killed?”

 

I shook my head, my eyes wide.

 

“She went crazy, Myka. She tortured the men that killed my daughter. In the most brutal ways possible. And after that, she became obsessed with changing the past, with saving Christina.”

 

She tapped on the machine behind us.

 

“I – she - built this thing to save my daughter. And what happened instead, was that she witnessed her death instead, trapped in the body of my daughter’s nanny. She watched Christina die, and she went even crazier. She started doing insane experiments and she killed another man, a Warehouse agent, in an accident. They put her in the Bronze sector, Myka. Because she _asked_ them to. Can you imagine the pain a person would have to be in to ask for that? They’re conscious, Myka. She was in there for over a century, conscious, immobile, insane. And when she came out of there, she tried to end the world. That’s what happened in the other timeline. I am given to understand that the only reason she didn’t do it was because of you. Mrs Frederic didn’t say it, but I suspect that she – that I - fell in love with you even in that alternate timeline, and that she couldn’t kill you. And you – you stood in front of her and told her that if she wanted to end the world, she would have to kill you. Even mad, even as an unrepentant killer, I couldn’t hurt you.”

 

I was staring at her, my mouth open.

 

“I…I didn’t know.”

 

She looked at me reproachfully.

 

“You didn’t _want_ to know. You just wanted to go back, to fix everything, to undo your past. To bring back your family, so that you wouldn’t turn into the person you are. Is that right?”

 

I nodded dumbly.

 

“Well, I happen to _love_ the person you are now, Myka. You have done things you are not proud of. You have killed people. You were obsessed with revenge and justice and your own pain. Is that what you want for me? Because that is all that awaits me, that other me, in the other timeline. I would have had another four years with my little girl, and then some monsters would have killed her, and all those things I mentioned would have come to pass. If you want that for me, Myka, then go. Do whatever you wish. Repair the timeline, fix things to your liking. Enjoy your family, your happiness. I understand perfectly why you would want that. I hope that, whatever happens, I will get to meet you, to see the person you should have been. Because I think I would always love you. No matter where we meet, or when, or how…”

 

I kissed her. And then I told her why I was doing this.

 

“You don’t know what I did, Helena. You don’t know how many people I killed, how many people’s lives I destroyed. I was cold, I was dead on the inside, and I wanted to make other people feel it. I pulled the trigger from half a mile away and I killed people without any regret. How can you love me? You don’t love someone like that, you pity them. And then you lock them up and you throw away the key.” My jaw was clenched and my nostrils were flared. She laughed.

 

“You are an idiot, Myka. I knew all of this. Arthur talked to me a long time ago – not long after we got here – and he told me what happened. He told me about Sam Martino, about how he was sent to recruit you, to make you into a killer. And he did his job well. And the things you did, Myka? You killed a lot of people, darling. I know you did. You were so very good at it. Had Sam not been discovered, Arthur feared that you would have moved beyond his reach, that you would have been sent away to murder members of the British government and other prominent people. I know the exact number of people you killed, Myka. And I _don’t care._ I mean, I do care, because it was awful, and those families didn’t deserve to lose their fathers or brothers or sisters – but then, neither did you, my love. You weren’t the person who started this. You were one of the victims. In the other timeline, love, you were a hero. Someone who protected others. And since I met you, that’s all you’ve done. You saved me from the zombies, you saved us all by capturing two zombies by yourself, and you were injured in the process – you could easily have died. You very nearly died when MacPherson caught you. Do you know what I immediately thought, when I heard about what happened to Christina in that other timeline? I wanted to find those men, even in this timeline, and rip their bloody hearts out with my bare hands. I wanted to dismember them for hurting my little girl. And Myka, when I saw what MacPherson and Diamond did to you? I _did_ kill MacPherson. I stabbed him to death while he was unconscious, Myka, and I would do it again. Some people – most people – would call me a monster, if they knew that. Mrs Frederic thinks that we are who we are, regardless of which timeline we are in. I prefer to think that circumstance determines what that means, exactly. You are a protector, Myka Bering, and you were simply trying to stop anyone else from dying the way your family did. Yes, your anger, your pain – they were misdirected, but how were you to know that? What those men did, Myka – none of us could have been expected to know how our lives had been changed, how our pasts and our ancestors had been messed with to leave us in the situations we found ourselves in. I know you’ll probably never forgive yourself, Myka. But I have already forgiven you. And I think the best we can do is to try to do better, from now on. Both of us. Together.”

 

I stared at her for a long time, and then I kissed her. I kissed her and kissed her and we made love right there, right beside the time machine that I was going to use to erase the person I was. She made love to me and I understood finally that she did love me – me, as I was, damaged and broken and empty. I was enough.

 

It took a long time before I was able to move again. I never _wanted_ to move again. I was exactly where I wanted to be. And the way she looked at me? I knew that she was, too. We lay there on the dusty floor of a Warehouse in South Dakota, where we were somehow meant to be all along, and each breathed in the air the other breathed out. She looked at me and I knew that I never had to worry again about being safe, about finding a home. Because wherever she was, that was where it was safe. That was where I was home.

 

We were forced, eventually, to move, because bodies are what they are. I could have died there, happily. But I didn’t. I got up and I looked at the machine, my obsession, this thing that could fix everything that was wrong, and I rejected it. Because what was all that, next to her?

 

I had a bloody fantastic time when I remembered that Mjölnir was stored in the superhero aisle. The time machine was quickly reduced to a pile of brass and bolts, and Helena stood in front of me, my arms around her waist and my head on her shoulder.

 

“I’m proud of you, love. Let’s go home.”

 

So we did. It wasn’t the life I’d envisioned. It wasn’t even a life I could have imagined. But it was where I was meant to be. Here with these miscreants and eejits, and a certain time traveller who’d completely stolen my heart and soul and made it hers. This Warehouse had become a home for all of us, against the odds, and I never wanted to leave it. I never wanted to leave her.

 

We went back to the B&B and ate dinner with the others. Claudia had invented some sort of new tesla rifle that shot the beam of electricity much farther than the little handheld ones. Helena was quickly looking over the design and suggesting improvements. They were both engrossed within minutes, saying words that I didn’t think were even real. I left them to it. Because what else can you do in the face of such enthusiasm? Arthur was bitching about Claudia messing with stuff she didn’t understand, and I mildly reminded him that it was actually him who didn’t understand, and he and I might be better leaving it to the experts and only stepping in if it got out of hand. Claudia clearly _did_ understand it, as Mrs Frederic’s guard could probably testify. He was unconscious on the sofa in the library, having taunted Claudia for messing with stuff that would be better left to the menfolk. I believe he referred to her as a little girl. So she showed him exactly how the rifle worked. She told me apologetically that he’d probably be awake in a few hours; a day, tops. I just shrugged. Served him fucking right.

 

Pete and I had another ‘who can eat the most’ contest. I had just spent the afternoon having incredible sex and beating a time machine to death with a magic hammer. I won. Leena smiled tolerantly. I suspected that poor girl was going to be doing a lot of things tolerantly with us in the house.

 

Steve was off upstairs meditating. I went to interrupt him, shamelessly just seeking attention, and somehow found myself joining in. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought; it was the same place I went to when I was playing the guitar. Or being tortured. It was soothing. (Not being tortured. Meditating. Just to be clear.) After that, we tried to sit together a few times a week. He was a nice fella, Jinks. He was cheeky and silly and somehow also completely calm and grounded. I liked that in a person – when they seem one way but are most definitely another. Like Pete. He was a big daft eejit on the surface, but underneath there was more eejit, and then a layer of this emotional intelligence that I could never have imagined. He was able to look at me and know how broken I was in so many ways, and he always knew, even better than Helena, sometimes, how to fix it.

 

I came back downstairs with Steve a while later, and Pete was sitting at the breakfast table chatting with Leena and Arthur animatedly, probably about superheroes. Arthur was pretending to be bored, doing his grumpiest voice, but I could see that he was chuffed to bits to be there, to be talking to these people.  He could feel it too, what I felt. The sense that maybe we could be a family. Helena and Claudia were still at the other table, poring over the plans for the new tesla rifle, and Steve sat himself down next to Claudia, unconsciously needing to be near her, I think. I stood watching them, these people that even madmen with a time machine couldn’t keep apart. The Warehouse was as broken as we were. It had been ravaged by evil and it needed to be put back together. It would never be the same. What had been done to it had left its mark. And so it was with me, with Helena, with Claudia – with all of us. We were the people it had chosen, in whatever mystical way a building’s mind can work, and we had only one another to rely on. I hadn’t dared, not for years, to hope. But after a few months that felt like a lifetime in all the best and worst ways, I did dare. I dared to hope that there might be a future in which we, all of us, could be a family. Could have a home. As Helena turned her head away from Claudia and flashed me a smile that made my knees buckle.

 

“Do you understand now, Ms Bering?”

 

I turned my head, and there she was, in all her pink-tweeded glory.

 

“I think so,” I said, my face blank as it probably always would be when I dealt with this woman. Because some scars are too deep to ever heal. When I saw Irene Frederic’s face, I would always see our Tracy’s face in a burning car.

 

“Good. Because they need you to be here, to be their leader. Arthur will set the rules, but you will set the tone.”

 

I nodded. And with that, she was gone. Actually disappeared in between blinks, as if she was using Arthur’s magic sword. I shook my head. Endless wonder, she said. She wasn’t wrong. I would endlessly wonder how I’d got here, from death and darkness and emptiness to this warm place, to laughter and food fights and video games and hope.

 

_“I hope, or I could not live.”_

 

She didn’t write that, my Helena. It was her brother. She was gone, by then. But she still smiled when I had it tattooed on my ankle. We would never need rings, she and I. Not when we had the matching scars of a broken timeline, of our lost lives, to mark us. But when her hand was in mine, I didn’t care about what I’d lost. She made me hope.


	13. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As promised (or should that be threatened?) a short epilogue to tie it all up. Thanks again to you all for reading along with this crazy little story of mine.

The Time Machine was gone, repurposed into a thousand new gadgets that Helena and Claudia had put together. In this last few years, we’d tracked down maybe 70% of the artefacts that the Shadow Regents had released into the world. The Warehouse was healing. Mrs Frederic smiled a lot, now, when she transported in from wherever it was she lived. A different plane of existence, for all I knew. Our little team had grown together, in the few years since we’d left Northern Ireland for South Dakota. Claudia was becoming a strong young woman, now she’d been given the space and encouragement to grow and learn and create. Between her and Helena, there was always something blowing up in the Warehouse or the B&B. But the stuff they created – my God, they were terrifying. If they decided to go into the evil genius business, we’d all have been totally fucked. But since they were on our side, I could stand back and enjoy the fruits of their labour. They’d put voicemail on the Farnsworths, they had us all injected with tracking chips that monitored our vital signs, there were levitating neutralising platforms that carried heavy artefacts, goo guns for stuff that didn’t fit in bags – the goo hardened into a covering that totally neutralised whatever doohickey it was sprayed on – they were a force to be reckoned with, those two. Helena was learning computer hacking from Claudia. I wasn’t terribly pleased about that, until she managed to erase my criminal record in Northern Ireland entirely and give me a brilliant credit rating. Then I thought it was quite handy.

 

We went back with Mrs Frederic to Northern Ireland, about a year after our move to South Dakota. She somehow swung a meeting with the Taoiseach (the Southern Irish Prime Minister), the First Minister of Norn Iron, and the British Prime Minister. She whammied the shite out of them with some artefact that persuaded people to your point of view. They all fell over themselves agreeing with her, and a few weeks later, the peace process began in earnest. One of the effects of the artefact in question was that it spread, in the right circumstances, and since the message was that there should be peace and everyone should forgive each other, it wasn’t anything to worry about. So we all watched in awe as one artefact undid all the harm of another. It was the thing that finally persuaded me that I belonged in the Warehouse. I was happy there, already, but I was never sure that it was that important. Until I saw the good that could be done. All I’d seen before was the bad – the Dark Vault, the death, the suffering. But watching my country heal from a pointless war that had been extended because of me – that was the thing that swung it.

 

Helena, of course, was and remains my main reason for staying. She loves the Warehouse and it loves her. She is content in a way that warms me. It’s a beautiful thing to see in her, contentment. She is beautiful in any light, that girl, but when she is still and content and happy, she’s the most beautiful thing you’ll ever see.

 

We got married, after all, when the law changed in the US. Because even though we didn’t need it – we were quite content with the commitment we had made to one another - we wanted to be sure that wherever we went, we could be there for one another. Humans being what they are, two women together aren’t always appreciated or tolerated. If a piece of paper helped us not to have to deal with red tape if we ended up in hospital or whatever (which still happened far too frequently for my liking) then I was all for it. And of course it gave the others something to plan and generally squeal like little girls about. The wedding ceremony was quiet and it only had our little crew there, along with a humanist minister. He said some nice things, Leena made nice food. It was a nice day but I have so many other nice memories that it doesn’t even really stand out. The day we’d destroyed the Time Machine was probably the day I married her in my heart, if I was honest.

 

Pete met a soldier called Amanda when we were out on an artefact retrieval. She’s as hot as anything; if I’d been single, I would have fought him over her. But I wasn’t, and she only had eyes for him anyway. They’re getting married soon. Mrs Frederic likes her, which I think is a good sign. (But then she seems to like me, so maybe her judgement isn’t all that reliable.) Pete’s mother, Jane, moved over about a year and a half ago with his sister Jeannie. They live in the middle of Univille, the town nearby. She’s the spitting image of Captain Janeway and she could flay you alive using only the rough side of her tongue from ten paces. We don’t cross Jane.

 

Pete and I go out for a run every morning. He’s my best friend. He’s a big eejit, and a big girl, but we talk all the time about everything and I feel like he’s my compensation, along with Helena, for losing my family. The two of them together make me feel whole.

 

“Here, Myka, where the holy fuck is my Farnsworth?” said the man himself, as I looked out over the Warehouse.

 

“How the fuck should I know, you big hairy bollocks? I can’t keep track of your shite as well as everybody else’s.”

 

“Language, children,” Arthur said as he swept in with a pile of files.

 

“We have a ping. You are all off to Egypt. There’s something in the desert out there, and Mrs Frederic thinks it might be a lost Warehouse. Helena, you’re in charge for this one; I know you and Caturanga looked into Warehouse 2 back in the day. Read all the information and be careful.”

 

And off he wandered, to talk to himself about how terrible we all were, probably. I looked at my wee team and I couldn’t have been more proud. They were all ready and waiting, sharp and steady, and willing to give their lives for everyone else in the world; people who would never know they existed.

 

“Come on, you bunch of lazy fuckers. Time to get to work,” I said, showing my pride in my own unique fashion. Helena grabbed my hand and kissed me before we left.

 

“You are a taskmistress, Myka Bering.”

 

I grinned at her.

 

“Like you don’t love it, Wells.”

 

She smacked me on the arse so hard I yelped.

 

“Yes, I do love it. But there’s no need to get cocky,” she said, arching an eyebrow at me.

 

Fuck me, the woman was sexy.

 

“Get on with it, woman,” I said, and we went out into the barrenness of South Dakota to save the world.

 

“I hope she brings her Lara Croft outfit,” I said to myself, loudly enough to be heard, as we got in the car. She flashed me a grin and a bit of leg. There was quiet for a minute as I started up the car and started driving, and then she leaned over, her breath hot against my skin.

 

“You wish, Bering,” she whispered in my ear, and I nearly crashed the car.

 

(Update - She brought the outfit. We nearly ended up in an Egyptian prison as a direct result. Who knew Egyptians were so uptight about two ladies kissing each other? Thank Christ for Mrs Frederic’s Caretaker mojo.)

 

THE END


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